Aliens vs Exotroopers
by David N. Brown
Summary: In 2044, an alien outbreak occurs in the Balkans. Only a small band of warriors with the ultimate body armor can stop them... David N. Brown resides in Mesa, Arizona.
1. Demon of Kosovo Polje

**This chapter features a Predator intervening in a real historical event. It is intended simply to introduce the critters into the Balkan historical background. Readers may skip it. Murad, Bayezid, Yakub, Lazar, Brankovic and Obilic are all real persons. To my knowledge, there are three quite different accounts of Murad's death from historical sources. My account (minus Predator!) is a synthesis of two of them. My description of the predator is a modification of the movie version, based on unused concept sketches.**

**Prologue: Demon of Kosovo Polje  
**

"History records only winners and losers. And sometimes even that is unclear."

Charles Fair

June 15, 1389: Kosovo Polje

The dividing line between the realm of history and the outlying lands of legend, folklore and mythology is a principle concern of historians. The greatest obstacle to resolving this question is that the greater mass of humanity, especially before the "modern" era, has had little or no interest in such distinctions. This may be true for the Balkans more than most places, and it is egregiously so with one of the key events in the region's history: the Battle of Kosovo Polje ("Field of Blackbirds"). It is remembered in countless tales and songs, usually elaborated upon down to the finest detail. It has also been remembered through a fair number of deeds, such as the shooting of one Franz Joseph Ferdinand by one Gavrilo Princip in front of a Sarajevo café in June 1914. Yet, the vividness of legend stands in contrast to a dearth of knowable historical facts. For, it should be little exaggeration to say that those who remembered the battle best were those who were not there.

Now, venture to look through the haze of history, to Vivovdan, St. Vitus' day, in an expanse between to rivers. You will see two formidable armies engaged at point-blank range on the left bank of the river Lab. These are the army led by Prince Lazar, ruler of the Kingdom of Serbia and champion of Christendom, and that of Murad, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks and vanguard of Islam. Lazar leads the cavalry in his army's center, risking himself at every charge, while Murad remains sheltered in a tent at the rear of his own army's center. Yet, neither ruler will survive the day.

Now look to the left flank of Lazar's army. It is, strictly speaking, the army of a separate realm, ruled by Vuk Brankovic. The armies fight fiercely, perhaps more so than elsewhere on the battlefield. Though he will be branded a traitor, it is Brankovic who strikes the greatest blow against the Ottomans. His cavalry break through the Turks' left flank, which is led by the Sultan's son Yakub. The losses are great, scarcely less so for the Slavic knights than for the Turks. It is Brankovic's men who rue the exchange most, for, having breached the line, they find themselves alone, on horses to exhausted to advance or retreat, while the archers and lighter, swifter cavalry of the Turks regroup to counterattack. Few outrun the cavalry that come to intercept and then pursue. Fewer still make it through the gauntlet of the reforming left flank. When Brankovic retreats in ignominy, it is with no more than half of the 12,000 or so he first led onto the field.

Now, imagine that we can look closer still, through the eyes of one of those knights…

Milos Obilic cautiously peered over the corpse of his horse. It had been stuck with too many arrows to count. His own mail shirt had been stuck with too many to number without undue delay. He noted only that one had penetrated his shoulder. He watched as the last of the Turk horsemen passed by. They his gaze turned. A few hundred meters away, he saw a line of chained camels. Just a little further off was the top of a huge and ornate tent. "There," he murmured softly, as much in wonder as in fear of detection. "It is the sultan's tent!"

He took up the banner from the dead hands of his lord, and for one moment waved it in the air. From among the piled bodies and riderless horses came forth eleven more survivors. 4 of them were lords in armor like himself, all but one wounded and left for dead. The rest were lesser nobles who had been quick enough to dismount and take cover before the Turks could look too closely. "Shed all your armor except chain mail and breastplates. Leave your horses," he said. "We must move quickly, and stealthily. I do not think any of us shall live the day, but God willing, we shall send the heathen tyrant to Hell!"

As the 12 nobles snuck away, one Ottoman rider, already straggling, circled around to make sure none had been left alive. His eyes widened when he saw three of the knights sneaking toward the sultan's tent. He turned to shout a warning. Then his horse reared in fright for no apparent reason. He looked about, expecting to see another infidel come out of hiding, but there was nothing. Then he felt a terrific pain in his chest, and he was lifted from his horse. He looked down in mute surprise at the spear head protruding from his chest. He looked over his shoulder, and saw the shaft- but only where his own blood covered it. The rest was more transparent than glass. He could just begin to make out the shape of the one who held it. Then there was a hiss of an unseen blade, and the last thing he saw was his own headless body.

The camels by the sultan's tent became inexplicably agitated. Obilic feared it was at their presence, and would warn the guards. But the Turkish guards and Arab handlers were only further distracted by the camels' distress, which they knew to be unlike any response that could be elicited by a human or animal. One camel became so furious in its terror that its chain broke, and the beast fled at full speed toward the river Lab, leading a dozen men in the exact opposite direction from the knights.

Obilic led a charge through the very midst of men and beasts. Unable to raise his sword, he used a dagger instead, and was served better by it. Many guards were cut down before they knew a foe was among them. Still, only nine knights emerged from the fray. As guards began to extricate themselves and prepare to pursue, 3 knights fell back from the others to form a rear guard. The first charge by the guards was thrown back, with one knight and five guards slain. Six warriors with bows fanned out to either side and peppered the two knights with arrows. A second knight fell, and the last charged the guards. The bowmen fired a stream of arrows at him. But, inexplicably, there were only four bowmen, then three. Then one of them turned and shouted, and the others turned in time to see his head fly from his shoulders. The knight, heedless of what was happening among his adversaries, charged into the midst of the swordsmen. As he hewed down the Turks in a calculated frenzy, he saw that he was not the only one bringing them down. Yet, he did not see this second warrior, only a blood-stained blade that slew wherever it fell.

Finally, he stood with none to face except the invisible figure with the blood-stained blade. A tracing of lightning ran through it, giving a brief glimpse of its form. It had a stout, horse-like neck that went directly into the back of its head, and a silver mask covered its face and sloping forehead. Its legs were long and multi-jointed, and each foot was effectively just a single huge toe, like those of an ostrich. "I should thank you," he said, "but I know not what you are. I am sure you are no angel, and I can think of but one other thing you might be." The glassy sword shook in the air, shedding the blood from its length. The knight was already drawing his own sword back for a mighty stroke. But, before he could begin his thrust, the phantom's blade cut him in two.

It was the Prince Beyezid who reached the Sultan's tent first, accompanied by a squad of soldiers and a native slave who know both the local speech and Turkic. Four infidel knights and six of the sultan's guards lay slain at the mouth. He drew his scabbard and stepped inside. He signaled for the slave to follow. To the chief of the soldiers, he said, "Send for my brother Yakub. Tell him he is to come here to discuss a change in our plans."

Within were six more bodies. No- one still lived. And on the sultan's throne- he choked back a cry of rage. He drew his scimitar and pressed it to the knight's throat. "Ask this infidel his name," he said to the slave.

The knight spoke directly to the prince. "My name is Milos Obilic."

"Are you the one who killed the Sultan, my father?"

The slave translated the reply: "I am a good Christian, and I do not lie, neither to claim a good deed wrongly nor to hide an evil one. I strove mightily to slay your lord. If I had succeeded I would declare it proudly, even if it meant being killed by torture. But, in truth, it was neither I nor any in my band who did the deed. I will tell you my tale.

"'As you can see, I and my companions fought our way to this tent. I and another, Jovanovic, made our way within. We fought these last four guards and killed two, before Jovanovic was slain and I was disarmed. The last two guards prepared to cut off my head.

"Then something bizarre happened. One guard screamed. Red blades stuck out of his chest, but there was no one behind him to wield the blades. The last guard swung over the dying man's shoulders, and his scimitar broke on nothing. See there, I tell the truth.'" Bayezid looked at a shattered scimitar on the floor.

"The Sultan did not shrink with terror. He stood up, and drew his own sword, and advanced. He shouted something, I am sure to the invisible demon. Then- well, you see.'" Bayezid looked back to the throne. His father lay slouched in it, looking like he might have been roughly and carelessly tossed in. Body and chair alike were transfixed by a strangely-made spear.

Bayezid glared at Obilic. "So, you say my father was killed by a djinn? Then why did it not also kill you? And why did it leave its spear? Why-?"

Obilic spoke suddenly, shortly and sharply, in a tone that made the prince pause. The slave translated, "He said, it did not leave its spear. The demon is still in this tent."

Bayezid whirled around. Suddenly, a deep, inhuman chuckle rang through the tent. The slave bolted from the tent. As the prince watched, a huge creature materialized next to the body on the throne. It pulled the spear from the sultan's body, and somehow made the weapon collapse into a compact rod. It dropped the spear. Then it removed its mask. This revealed a face with beady eyes and mandibles in place of jaws. It roared, spreading the mandibles to show something like a mouth, but its toothy jaws opened to the sides instead of up and down. Finally, it shed plate armor that covered its torso and retracted two blades that projected from its forearm.

Obelic lunged for a fallen dagger. Bayezid cast aside his sword and ran from the tent, while the being's huge feet pounded closer and closer. As he dived through the threshold of the tent, he heard Obilic laugh, a laugh that ended in a scream. He looked into the calm but questioning faces of his soldiers. He raided himself to his feet, and glared at his cowering slave. "Kill him," he ordered briskly.

The soldiers had scarcely complied with the order when his brother Prince Jakub arrived. "What is the meaning of this?" Jakub shouted. "Have you at last resorted to patricide?"

A measure of calm and subtle cunning returned to Bayezid. "There is something in the tent which we must look upon together," he said.

"Together as in alone?" said his brother. Bayezid refrained from answering. "I can guess what it is you wish me to see: your ascension to sultan, and my own death!"

"Brother, dear brother," Bayezid said, "you wrong me! Did I not promise father I would never harm you?"

"Yes, but our father is dead, is he not?"

"That is what we must see."

"This is what I shall do," said Jakub. "I will go inside, with two of my guards. You will remain here. When I return, we shall speak."

Jakub and two of his guards went inside. Moments later, there was a hint of a stifled cry within. The rest of Jakub's guards drew their swords, only to find the swords of Bayezid's soldiers at their throats. "My brother insisted he would go in with but two guards," Bayezid said with a smirk. "I am only making sure that his wishes are followed."

Bayezid returned to the right flank, where he launched the counterattack which decisively routed the Serb army. He ordered his father's tent set on fire. The soldiers reported that the tent collapsed soon after. No one and nothing, they said, could have escaped. When they examined the tent, they found the still-recognizable bodies of the Sultan, Obilic and Jakub. The sultan and the knight were missing their heads. Jakub's body was intact. It was decided that he had been dead before the fire, probably by strangulation. It was whispered that the marks of something like enormous hands were found encircling his throat.

NEXT: Aliens on the high seas


	2. Ghost ship

Ghost Ship

**Ghost Ship**

April 11, 2044: 12 km from the coast of Ukraine

"Vessel _Papa Juan Paolo_, this is the UN health inspection vessel_ St. Theresa_. You have strayed from course, and are entering a high-traffic area. It is essential that you pull away from shore and come to a halt. We are prepared to render assistance if anyone aboard is sick or injured. If you do not respond, you will be boarded by force. Repeat… Vessel _Papa Juan Paolo_, this is the UN health inspection vessel _St. Theresa_…"

The ship _Papa Juan Paolo_ could have been any one of thousands of ugly, non-descript tubs that sailed the oceans. It was a barge-like vessel, expressly designed to carry boxcar-sized cargo containers. Its papers showed that it was a ship of Paraguay, registered less than 2 years before, though the ship itself was clearly not less than 20 years old. This made it far from home indeed, in the waters of the Black Sea, on a parabolic course for the coastline of Ukraine. It easily matched the description of a "ghost ship": A civilian cargo vessel, bought on the black market from pirates or some wrecker who officially had cut it up for scrap, hastily repainted, registered in some minor nation where officials were easily bribed, and then put into service in any number of ends, almost certainly involving the movement of things- and, perhaps, people- into places where others were trying to keep them out. It appeared that it was now a ghost ship in the more traditional sense, moving on its own momentum with no sign of guidance by a human crew.

The _St. Theresa_, a ship of the UN Council on Science and Technology, was the _Papa_'s antithesis. It was a very modern vessel, fitted with a large medical ward and a pad for helicopters. It had the most advanced technology for navigation and communications. It also carried an armed search-and-rescue squad, whose 10 members were currently on deck prepared for boarding. Each wore a Nuclear Biological Chemical hazard suit, heavy enough that motors had been installed in the legs for improved mobility. It was designed to protect against everything from airborne germs to hazardous chemicals to extreme heat, standard small arms fire and light nuclear fallout. The hood that covered neck and facemask had earned the name "headsmen". Also on hand were four medics in lighter, more compact NBC gear, commonly dubbed "bunny suits".

One of the headsmen spoke, "I give you 10 to one odds it's another slaver trafficking Albanian refugees. There's talk that one of the Albanians themselves is doing it, a real pussack named Envers. He's supposed to have massive connections in the Kosovar resistance front, the Chechen mafia, and the UN. As long as the war between the Albanians and the Serbs has been going on, he's been smuggling refugees out of the disputed zones, straight into the international slave markets, and running guns back in, mostly over the Bulgie-Kosovo border. There's also talk the brass know where he is, down to a street address, but they repeatedly refused to act. Nobody needs to guesses why…"

Another spoke: "What I can't understand is why the bloody Albies can't take care of their own."

A medic, carrying an incongruous brief case, spoke, "Well, for starters, there is no such thing as Albanians." The voice was an Asian accent, with a strong English influence, sounding as learned as a professor. All heads swiveled toward him. "They call themselves Shqiptars, not Albanians, and I have always considered it a matter of courtesy to call people whatever they call themselves. They divide themselves into two major tribes: Gegs and Tosks. The Shqipteria is dominated by Tosks, while Kosovo's Albanians are almost entirely Geg, which is one of the major reasons why the nations never unified. The other is that there are half as many Shqiptars in Kosovo as in Shqipteria itself. If I'm not mistaken, you are from the US… Johnson, isn't it?... and would your country consider admitting 150 million new citizens at once? Then there are the clans, and the feuds… There is a record of a feud between Kosovar Gegs in the 1800s that claimed over 100 lives. That was by no means remarkable; what made it noteworthy was that it apparently started as a dispute over a dozen rounds of ammunition. My point is, the Shqiptars have had limited experience working together, and it surely does not help when peacekeepers' like yourself do not know a thing about them, starting with their actual name…"

The leader interjected, "Dr. Ling. Enough." He pressed down on his earpiece. "We have just been authorized to board. Everyone onto the helicopter!"

The small superstructure of the cargo hauler was offset, like that of an aircraft carrier. There was no deck, only walkways between row on row and stack on stack of the conveniently anonymous cargo containers, all the way down to the bottom of the hull. A number of the containers had slid out of place or entirely toppled. Rather than land the copter on the doubtful surface of the containers, the headsmen jumped down to the first walkway, and the medics followed on a rope ladder. The helicopter kept pace overhead.

There were four walkways on the ship, plus a fifth at the bottom, with narrow metal staircases between them. These were purely a convenience (and that nominal) for cargo inspectors. Loading and unloading of the containers was purely a job for portside equipment. The leader of the squad went with another headsman to check the control cabin. Moments later, the engines stopped. The leader called out through a hatch: "No sign of the crew. Radio and navigation are fully operational. The door was unlocked; against regulations. It would have had a crew of five. No sign of struggle; or illness. Last log entry is from 3 days ago. It appears that the crew left the cabin, one or several at a time… and never returned. The last one to leave left a pizza in the microwave. It's like the bloody Mary Celeste."

The headsmen descended to the second "deck", the medics following behind. They halted halfway down. The steps were covered in blood. But the closest thing to a body was a severed, slightly shriveled hand. The leader stooped to press a thumb- the fingers were missing- to a miniature scanner. "This belonged to one of the crew," he said. "According to the log, he was the captain of the vessel."

They continued their descent, more slowly than before. Suddenly, the captain called back, "Medic!" Ling rushed forward, squirming his way past the headsmen. The captain was supporting a woman apparently in a delirium, and obviously in the late stages of pregnancy. She was Albanian, but her skin was abnormally pale by any standard, especially for the swarthy sub-races of the Mediterranean. She groaned feebly, as if in pain too great even to scream. Ling felt her wrist. Then her belly.

"Low pulse… No fetal heart beat. She requires immediate medical care. We must fly her back to the _Theresa_."

As Ling flew back with the woman and another medic, they removed her clothing and made a grotesque discovery. Her swollen belly was not like a normal pregnancy. It was angrily red, like an enormous pimple, and the area around her navel was covered with something hard and scaly. In fact, it looked almost as if the scaly matter was something projecting through her skin. After a short time passed out, her eyes opened, and she began to speak, weakly but urgently. The second medic looked at Dr. Ling. "She says she is Tatia… she is nineteen… and she comes from Southeast Montenegro. She says her father is dead, and her brothers are missing, and her mother and 3 youngest sisters are in Bulgaria… She says she boarded the ship with two of her sisters…"

He asked a question, and translated her answer: "Her mother arranged passage for them to go to Poland and get jobs. She heard the name Envers… She would have gone herself, with all her children, but they only had enough money for the three eldest girls." He asked another question, and then another as if disbelieving her first answer. "She says she was not pregnant when she boarded the ship, was a virgin. She says men speaking Greek made all the women strip before boarding, and be inspected by a man who was supposed to be a doctor. They were, she says, very angry when a woman was found to be pregnant, or sick or injured. All of these were pushed into one container, a dozen in all along with the doctor. She says she herself was packed in with thirty other women. And she says… She says two of these women screamed they were not pregnant, though their swollen bellies could be seen as soon as their clothes were off. They both were very pale… as she is now… They had trouble breathing, and one fainted, then they were packed away.

The woman's words came in a long string. "She says, three days later, she heard screams in the hold. Many screams, for hours. Then a… demon… broke open the container she was in. It was like an insect, shaped like a man, with a tail like a scorpion. It began pulling out women. Most it killed, tore to pieces. But she and one of the others were stung- violated- with its tail, then stuck to the container wall with slime that became hard. They all swelled where they had been stung… pregnant by the demon's seed. The one inside her has been eating her. She feels it moving. She broke free before the slime hardened. She says she found a dozen opened containers, most with a few women inside. Some were just beginning to swell. Some had the belly and chest covered by a dome of the… stuff. She saw one of these break open, and a little demon came out. Nothing was left of the women's womb and bowels. Then the demon shed its skin, and began to get larger."

"Obviously hallucinations and delusion," said the other medic. "Probably a distorted memory of being raped during an ethnic cleansing' operation."

The woman began to scream. "She is begging us to kill her. She says if we do not, she will die when she gives birth to the demon inside her, and then the demon will kill us."

As they landed, Ling said to the helicopter pilot, "Return to the ship immediately. Contact the rescue squad and tell them to prepare to return." To his partner, he said, "Stay in your suit, and move this woman to quarantine. Take a sample from the growth on her stomach. It might be a communicable disease. I'm going to contact the rescue squad myself."

Moments later, in the communications room, Ling listened in concern to a static-filled transmission. "…Missing… three survivors… cut free… believe… rest… not movable at this time."

"You made the right call," Ling said. "Withdraw to the bridge and await evacuation. We're going to bring the Theresa alongside you to speed your extraction."

Someone tapped Ling's shoulder. "Your presence is requested in the quarantine room…"

Ling rushed in. The woman was on the table, hooked to an EKG machine that measured her fading heartbeat. "The patient is in danger of cardiac arrest. I'm calling in a defibrillator."

"No," Ling said. He was focused on the subtly complex process of unlatching his briefcase. "She's already gone." As he spoke, the EKG flat lined. His partner began CPR. Then there was a loud, wet ripping sound, followed by a scream. Ling stood up and turned, to see his partner struggling with a half-meter-long, monkey-like insectoid that had clamped onto his throat. He raised the briefcase in one hand, and what he had removed from it in the other- and fired two bursts of automatic fire into the creature. A spray of yellow-green fluid melted through the briefcase's shell, but was halted by bullet-proof ceramic beneath. More of the stuff slowly ate into the floor. Ling looked down somberly at two dying organisms. His partner had been fatally wounded by hits to the head and chest, but no less so by a ruptured jugular where the creature had bitten and then let go. The creature itself flopped on the deck, cut in half but still thrashing, hissing and snapping. Ling reached into his briefcase and took out a small grenade launcher that fit to the front of his weapon, a somewhat archaic-looking 10 mm machine pistol. He fired a single shot into the base of his dying partner's skull, and fired the grenade launcher at the creature. The grenade detonated in the cup, releasing a jet of white phosphorous smoke. When the phosphorous reached it, the larva burst into flame, its destructive blood boiling away as its body burned.

Back in the communications room, gunfire sounded over the air. "-Biological acid!... Eating through metal… hull compromised!" The transmission ended in a roar of water that gave way to the hiss of static.

"The copter shows visual contacts on deck," the comm. technician said to Ling as he entered the room. "Identity unknown; he wants instructions."

"Tell him to return immediately. And turn the ship to starboard! I want us as far from the derelict as possible."

As _Theresa_ veered way, _Papa Juan Paolo_ listed catastrophically to port. Containers toppled into the sea or down into the hold. A single headsman rushed up from the hold, waving desperately, but even as he signaled, he was pounced upon by two mysterious black shapes. As he fell, one of his attackers perished in spume of yellow blood. Moments later, a series of explosions erupted from the ship, as a thermite charge ignited the ship's diesel stores and some of its more volatile cargo. The ship's hull abruptly caved in, nearly breaking in two. Cargo containers tumbled ponderously overboard. Through the fire, smoke and flying debris, Ling (watching from the stern) caught a glimpse of a dark, anthropoid shape tumbling overboard.

"Bring us to a halt," he ordered. He intently watched. He loaded an oversized grenade into the launcher, and took aim at a suggestive ripple a few hundred meters away. The grenade sailed through the air on a high arc, assisted by a small rocket motor. It burst just above the water, sending a spray of burning napalm over the water for several meters. Something caught fire in turn, sending out a plume of smoke before vanishing beneath the surface. Ling continued to watch intently. He fired a second grenade, much closer, that sent a spume of water 50 meters away. "Start engines," he ordered. As the motors sputtered, as Ling was still peering into the sea, a dark, wraith-like shape lunged out of the water and up the smooth hull, its armored hide still smoldering from a residue of napalm. Ling fired burst after burst, then a steady stream of shots as the creature's skeletal hand gripped the railing. Only some of his rounds penetrated the armored hide. He fired his last few shots almost point-blank into the side of its head. It hung on for a moment, and then dropped, just as the boat's screws came to life. The creature led out a final shriek before it vanished in a spray of fouled sea water.

Hours later, Ling spoke into a cell phone headset. "I have transferred all visual records of the encounter with the parasitoid species, presumed extraterrestrial. Important data: It is confirmed that small arms fire does not reliably penetrate the exoskeleton, but the exoskeleton is easily damaged by incendiaries. Isolated drones' are capable of breeding, most likely through direct injection of an embryo with an ovipositor in the tail. In these circumstances, it appears that the larval phase is bypassed, and the endoparasite develops directly into the adult form. Theories for further investigation: The so-called drones' ability to breed is probably suppressed when in proximity to a primary breeder, or 'queen', perhaps explaining conflicting descriptions of the tail. Only one of these queens can lay the eggs from which the species' ectoparasitoid phase, dubbed face-hugger', originates. Reproduction without direct implantation by an ectoparasitoid may be limited to a single species, which would make the queen essential for interspecies infection.

"Testimony by victim confirms that the victims of the parasitoid came from Bulgaria. It is probable that the operation of Envers in particular is responsible. Clear danger of uncontained outbreak exists. It is essential to investigate immediately. Recommend that Envers should be eliminated." He listened. "Already in progress?"

NEXT: Enter the exotroopers


	3. Lords of Battle

**OK, now we get to the action, but still introducing human characters. Zaratustra and the "finback" design were first featured in my short story "Uncertainty", and Princip, the Flea, the Tick, Sunflower and Zotgjakt are featured in "Walking Dead".**

**Lords of Battle  
**

April 14, 2044: A secret location in Serb-occupied Kosovo

The Serbo-Albanian war was perceived from its outset as one in a long series of wars in the Balkans. It had been expected that it would offer little in the way of tactical and technological innovation. The arsenals of both sides were dominated by weapons and vehicles first built during the last years of the "Cold War". But, almost accidentally, the war led to the first large-scale deployment of the most revolutionary weapon system since World War 2: the exotroopers.

The development of combat exoskeletons had proceeded slowly since the 20th century. Advocates and critics alike had considered it suited for only a limited range of roles: Protection against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons, survival in extreme environments, and (according to the most optimistic proponents) special forces operations. Development and deployment proceeded according to these lines. The first exoskeleton deployed operationally was a modified "headsman" NBC suit, fitted with motors in the legs. Succeeding western exoskeletons proceeded on similar lines, being designed as NBC gear with protections against weapons fire being no more than a secondary concern. But then from the east came the 311 exoskeleton. Designed in Russia, built on license by international consortium and sold to Serbia and Montenegro, the suit would be judged a key factor in the course of the Serbo-Albanian war. When first deployed in 2042, in what was then primarily a border dispute between Kosovo and Serbia, they had driven the Kosovars to the brink of surrender. When Albania entered the war in mid-'43, they stopped and then threw back an amphibious invasion of Montenegro. A mobilization by Croatia that threatened Serbia from the north was inexplicably aborted, and a mysterious operation by 3 squads of exotroopers was deemed responsible.

Technologically, the 300-series exoskeleton was obsolete by the time designers had a working prototype. Their Russian sponsors ordered that, rather than attempting to catch up with western designs, they should maximize "combat survivability". To this end, they made the relatively bulky hydraulic motors even more robust. They used composite armor, made of flat slabs of alternating layers of metal and ceramic, and positioned the slabs at multiple angles to quadruple the thickness presented toward head-on impacts. It was suggested that the suit could be "stealthed" against infrared, and so they added radiators to prevent heat accumulation. Finally, it was realized that, even with full armor, the wearer could still easily carry over 100 kg of weapons and other gear, and that he would be able to fire weapons from the shoulder that would otherwise be unmanageable.

The result looked like a man with stubby wings, put together from oversized prisms plated with metal. Their armor was 45 mm thick in places, and judged equivalent to 80 cm of steel. A heavier "tank destroyer" version of the armor, fitted with a rack for Explosive-Reactive armor, could stop most anti-tank weapons. It was effectively invisible to infrared equipment, unless the user stepped in front of another heat source. Its users could run at full speed, and even climb with the aid of retractable claws. They carried and fired archaic but massive weapons like the MG45, an 8 mm machine gun that fired 30 rounds per second; 3 cm automatic grenade launchers; 14.5 mm anti-materiel rifles; and 57 mm recoilless guns. They did not limit themselves to swift and stealthy commando raids like conventional special forces troops, but fought side-by-side with frontline infantry. They went by a number of names. They called themselves hercegs, after the Balkans' feudal nobility. The Shqiptars of Albania called them crusaders. The Kosovars referred to them more respectfully as "lords of blood", traditional title of avenging kinsmen. To western onlookers, they had acquired a number of names. The one which stuck most persistently was finback.

To those who saw the base exoskeleton, finbacks (indeed all exotroopers) seemed inhuman and impersonal. But in action, the armor became virtually an extension of the wearer's personality. Limitless variations were made by rearranging the standard parts and adding ones improvised from battlefield scrap. It was said that, if one could get a complete description of a finback's armor, one could identify the individual on every occasion. Those who had seen groups of them, in and out of the armor, reported something even stranger. There was indeed no trouble telling individuals apart based on armor. But it was frequently difficult to tell them apart out of the armor. Perhaps this was why, when gathered before and after battle, finbacks usually remained in armor.

On this occasion, eight finbacks, plus eight of the support troops dubbed squires or "seconds", were gathered. Most had their helmets and masks off, revealing uniformly shaved, pale-skinned heads. The chief was among those who kept his helmet on. His status was marked by an improvised crown, made in his case from a circlet of braided barbed wire. His name was Lt. Princip, and he was the longest-serving member of the finback force.

"Now, after your experiences in counterinsurgency, you may be thinking, Envers' guards will be a walkover. You may be expecting more of the same thugs and fanatics with fourth-hand Kalashnikovs. Rest assured, what we will face is of an entirely different order. Envers has saved plenty of the weapons he smuggles for his own defense, and he has spent a sizable portion of his profits hiring people who know how to use him. His personal guard includes four veterans of the US Marine Corps, a Spetznatz sniper instructor and a blackbelt. Their known equipment includes carbon microfiber body armor, 7 mm caseless assault rifles with 2.5 cm grenade launchers, at least one Eliminator 22 mm antimateriel rifle, a working 7.62 Minnie gun' and a 12.5 cm smoothbore antitank gun.

"Envers' ace in the hole is a vehicle called the Limo'." He showed a picture of a huge, glossy black ten-wheeled vehicle that resembled a mobile home with dreams of world domination. "It is based on a 6X6 offroad supply carrier and trailer, capable of moving at almost 50 kph offroad. Wherever Envers goes, the Limo is with him and online at all times. When he is on the move, it carries him, his guards and as many of his top lieutenants as he cares to take along. It is known to have a retracting turret, which holds a 35 mm auto cannon, a coaxial 12.76 machine gun, and four anti-tank missile launchers. The vehicle also bears a large number of defensive grenade launchers, loaded with smoke and chaff. Perhaps most formidably, it has an array of sensors and communication equipment, which is believed to be capable of detecting and tracking lasers and Narrow-Band Radar. In every attempt to capture or kill Envers while he is traveling, he has detected his enemies in advance and either defeated or evaded them.

"The only alternative, so far not even attempted, is to take him at his home', a fortified compound centered on an 18th-century mansion. It has been surrounded with an electrified barbed-wire fence and sensor net, and further fortified with numerous weapons and sensor emplacements and over one hundred guards. A further problem for us is posed by a number of paved roads and parking lots within the compound." The other finbacks nodded. Asphalt was a hazard to them because it absorbs and then releases heat, producing a glow in the infrared spectrum. When they walked on it, they became visible as silhouettes.

"I intend to use two squads, one to enter the compound, neutralize the anti-armor weapons and immobilize the Limo, and a second- my own- to support a final assault. For those of the first team, surprise will be of the essence. You cannot use radar or laser scopes, lest they compromise your own positions. You must use passive night vision and optical scopes only. You should use suppressed weapons only, up to the final assault. You must breach the fence without sounding the alarm, and cross the asphalt without revealing your position. If necessary, you are to engage the Limo and the guards, to keep Envers in place until my squad arrives.

"I have personally chosen every member of this first squad, except one. Zotgjakt, called Shqiptar- you were my first choice for tank destroyer in the strike squad." He looked at a man in heavy armor, who unusually had allowed a little facial hair to grow. This was the only Albanian member of Serbia's exotrooper force, a Geg from southeastern Montenegro whose clan had been sundered from their kin by some forgotten feud. "But I was convinced that another would be better suited, due to specialized skills. So, instead, I am assigning you to be tank destroyer to my own squad. However, I must ask you: Do you have any problem with taking part in this mission?"

"None whatsoever," said Zotgjakt. "Envers is an evil man. And besides, he is a Tosk!" There were ripples of laughter, the only real purpose to the question. Everyone who knew Zotgjakt at all knew his loyalty to Montenegro, and his complete hostility toward the Albanian national government.

Princip turned to the only other finback in full armor. This one also wore a commander's crown, put together from steel rods. It was both more imposing, and suitable for deflecting incoming projectiles. His other distinctive feature was that, whenever he made a fist with his right hand, the third finger remained rigidly extended. "I have chosen as commander of the first squad Sergeant Schwartz, who prefers to be called Zaratustra. He was my skirmisher in the Zagreb strike. He is back with us after his second term as chief of security for the BioDeterrence Division."

Princip turned his gaze to a pair of finbacks who were sprawled on an overtaxed couch, and making no secret of the fact that they considered the briefing an interruption from a card game in progress. One had lightened his armor by removing a number of plates, including those of the pelvis, which had been replaced with a heavy-duty tire. The other had upgraded his armor, and inexplicably wore a toilet seat around his neck. Princip looked from one to the other, saying with only a hint of humor: "Josevicz, called the Flea (Serbo-Croatian: _Buva_), and Kosmets, called the Tick (_Vu"s_): It is with great reluctance and growing alarm that I have assigned you to be strike squad's skirmishers. Between Buva's ability to dodge and Vu"s' ability to find cover, I judge there is at least a 50 chance of one of you surviving the mission."

Finally, he looked to another tank destroyer. This one was sitting beside his own ERA rack, which in place of explosive panels was decorated with scrap from his kills, arranged in a disconcertingly festive floral pattern. "Karajorga, called Sunflower (_Sunkolkrak_): At Zaratustra's request, you are being assigned to the strike both as tank destroyer and as silent weapons specialist. We have received a number of reports of your skill with- traditional weapons."

"These, sir?" He removed a gear from his armor rack; it had been fashioned into a serviceable throwing star. "Well, I do score within the top percentile of competitive _shuriken-jutsu._ But I must tell you what any expert would: Shuriken are not practical combat weapons."

Zaratustra spoke in a deep but noticeably rasping voice: "Duly noted, Kolcrak. I will ask you: are you prepared to make the experts eat s?"

Sunflower saluted. "I will do my best, sir."

Princip laughed and spoke the standard closing remark: "You are free to go, men, but only if you can tell me: _What's the best way to stop a bullet?"_

All of them roared back in unison: _"Shoot the other man first!"_

April 15, 2044: Treklayano Municipality, Bulgaria

Even through the masonry of the mansion, Envers could hear the sounds of battle, and they did not bode well. Apart from a couple warnings of shorts in the fence, no alarm had been sounded until the attack was in progress. His prized anti-tank gun must have been taken by then, since it never fired a shot. The first weapon to sound was the minigun, which ran for all of 11 seconds. His ex-marines went forth, straight into a volley of AGL fire from well within the perimeter of his home. Only one of them fired his weapon. The Spesnatz sniper did marginally better. He heard three shots from the Eliminator rifle. If the sniper fired a fourth shot, it was drowned out by the impact of a 57 mm high-explosive shell.

He retreated toward the rear of the building with six of his guards. From outside came a roar of engines as the Limo pulled out of the garage. A massive amount of gunfire erupted. "There is our diversion!" said the leader of the guards, an Asian woman. They ran for a rear entrance, which he had fitted with a modern steel door. Outside were seven motorcycles, which with good fortune would carry them to Macedonia. The gunfire outside was accentuated by a crashing and screech of metal, and then began to subside.

"Oh, hells!" he said. "I hoped it would lead them out of the compound. But we can still get out of here before they find out I'm not in it!"

The leader and two other guards moved forward to see that the door was secure. Before they reached the door, it flew open. White phosphorous smoke poured in, enveloping the three guards. Three bursts of caseless rifle fire sounded within the smoke. He got a glimpe of sparks against a manlike shape. Then the leader came flying back out. In a fraction of a second, two of the remaining guards stepped in front of him, and a third stepped to one side to fire the grenade. They might as well have assailed their attacker with bare fists. A huge weapon fired three times, before any of them could fire theirs.

Envers froze where he stood. The shape of the finback stepped imperiously out of the smoke. A crown of iron bars ringed his head. An exotic instrument called a gas spike was mounted on his left forearm, in place of the usual grenade launcher. In his right hand, he held a huge "pistol" that fired 12-gauge shotgun shells. His eyes flicked to the third finger, which was extended. He relaxed. "Zaratustra," he said. Quickly, a note of genuine smugness entered his voice. "I actually rather hoped to contact someone in your organization…"

April 15, 2044: Back in Kosovo

"I still say," said Sunflower, "that the hata-shuriken is not practical for combat." His rack bore a new trophy, a hubcap from the Limo.

The Tick looked up from his cards. "That first marine out the door would disagree."

The Flea chimed in: "Yeah, but he didn't do nearly so well against that sniper in the tree. He used up half his stars, and still didn't hit him. I was ready to climb up and pull him down when he finally fell, and that was just an accident."

"Not quite," Zaratustra interjected. He was in the process of examining a reproduction PTRD 41 rifle. "He fell because he was distracted. A 4 cm disc slamming into a branch next to one's ear will do that. Distraction is the one purpose for which shuriken have always been accepted."

"But the guy screamed all the way down! I was amazed it didn't draw every guard on the perimeter to where I was."

"There was never a danger of that. At worst, he would have drawn every guard to where you had been. You were already most of the way to the AT gun by the time we were over the fence."

At another table, Princip sat with his skirmishers, anxious rookies named Pavel and Lupov. They were helping to remove several hundred minigun bullets from his armor. "By the way, Buva, fine work capturing the 12.5 cm gun. It would have been even more inconvenient than the minigun to deal with in the main assault. Is it true you secured the piece without a single shot or blow?"

"Yes, it was simple enough," the Flea said, now trying to sound smooth. "The crew didn't see me until I was standing next to them with a gun. It was a group of Indians. The one in charge just raised his hands and said, Reincarnation or no, I am not dying for that karmaless son of a pig!' I gave them each a sound tap on the head. Then, of course, I moved in, and got in position just in time to stop the Limo."

"Stop it?!" snorted the Tick. "It ran over you!"

"Yes, but it stopped, didn't it?" said the Flea. "They had little enough choice, after I slashed their tires and tore out the carburetor." He glared at Sunflower. "Why did you take that hubcap? It was my kill, not yours."

"It was an assist. You disabled it, I knocked out the main weapon. Besides, I offered you a piece. You didn't want one."

"I already had my own trophy," said the Flea. He pointed to a captured minigun.

"What were you expecting to do with that?" said the Tick. "You realize, there's no way even one of us could shoot that thing?"

"I'm not so sure… There's a story I've heard of a group of Special Forces troops who rigged a minigun to function as a squad MG. It's said that they ran it on a light-weight, battery-powered motor, and loaded it with AK47 rounds instead of full-sized NATO ones. They could carry it around and fire it from a tripod. One of them is supposed to have been able to fire it from the hip, if you can believe that."

"I can't," said Sunflower. It was a remark the Flea would have let slide from his fellow skirmisher, but he seized upon it as a chance to further goad the tank destroyer.

"Well, why do you collect all those trophies? I'm sure you don't carry them all with you."

"I take them home to use in more permanent sculptures," said Sunflower. "Right now, I'm working on a swan." He looked to Zaratustra. "And we still haven't heard from the one who made the kill. Tell us, Zed, what happened in the take-down."

Zaratustra set down the rifle and began to tell his story. "Well, I took it as a given that Envers would have multiple means of escape. So, while you and Vu's were slaughtering marines, I circled around the rear, and saw bikes, just outside a door. So, I waited, and when I heard approaching footsteps, I forced the door with my gas spike. He still had some of his guard with him, including the black belt: a saucy little lass. I could tell she was the one by how she moved. She managed to draw a mark on me while we were both in the smoke, and put a bullet in my visor housing. I was gentle with her. I think she will live."

The others chuckled. "Was Envers still alive when you took the last guards down?" said the Flea. Zaratustra nodded slightly, as if there was something he was reticent to reveal.

The Tick chimed in eagerly, "What happened?"

"He talked. A little."

"Was he begging for his life?"

"No. He tried to buy his life. By the time he got to begging, it was for his own death."

The finbacks laughed long and loud.

Later, alone, Zaratustra made a report: "The presence of the parasitoid in the hands of Envers is confirmed. He had this as proof." He held up the slightly shriveled corpse of a giant, crab-like creature. "It matches records of the ectoparasitoids in all particulars. Envers admitted personal knowledge of 14 human and 5 animal infections. He claims to have 3 specimens under containment', at the location I am sending. He also possessed images of possible extraterrestrial technology, presumably of another species than the parasitoid. Envers has been eliminated as per instructions. Between his confession and files recovered from his property, there is sufficient data to neutralize his major operations and associates. My unit will remain in a position suitable for a strike for at least the next 4 hours. If orders are duly expedited, we can secure the new target by 1200 hours 16 April."

Next: History of the Hunter


	4. The Hunter's cave

**Bredilovo and the Brotherhood are featured in the Dark Horse comic "Old Secrets". (I just realized, the name's "Brodilovo" in the comic.) I have changed the name of the Predator race, but tried to keep it a variation of "Yautja". "Jag" is essentially borrowed from German.  
**

**The Hunters' Cave**

One religion's gods are another's demons.

Source unknown

Treklayano municipality, Bulgaria: 0200, April 16

Anton Princip (a distant relation to the infamous Gavrilo) was widely regarded as the best of Serbia's exotroopers. His talent had led him into an unusual role. Only someone with a special combination of combat skill, self-control and technical aptitude could be considered for service as an exotrooper. Such individuals were always scarce, and armies with exotrooper forces typically ended up with more working exoskeletons (scarce in themselves) than qualified operators. Serbia had faced this dilemma by 2043. Desperate measures had been resorted to field as many exotroopers as possible, the most egregious being an attempt to train paramilitary convicts as exotroopers. Zaratustra represented the sole success of the predictably disastrous enterprise. The eventual solution arrived at was training squads: Having been screened for basic aptitudes, then given just enough training to operate their suits, recruits were sent directly in combat, not only as squires but as finbacks in full armor. To give them the best chance of surviving to be seasoned exotroopers, only the very best finbacks were selected to teach and lead them.

Princip was also known as a kind, compassionate and pious man. Unlike most Serbs, he was active in the Eastern Orthodox church, rather than merely identifying attending a few annual holy-day service. To some eyes, he was superstitious. He hailed from Montenegro, specifically one of the southeastern areas currently being fought over. He fought for nothing more or less than an end to the partitioning of the Yugoslav countryside. On a day-to-day basis, he fought for his own men, to keep them alive, to teach them, and to show them how to be good soldiers and decent men. The virtue he tried to instill in his men would be sorely tested by what they had to do now.

"As we have suspected, Envers has been using connections in the UN and an extensive network of caves to move people and contraband from place to place," he said. "Two locations are of particular interest. One is a UN storage depot, based in a rebuilt 19th-century fortification which was itself built on the foundations of a much earlier structure. Envers turned it into a hiding place for militants, and a transfer point for his own trade. His personal usage followed the usual barter' pattern: Refugees smuggled out of their camps are replaced by militants, and pilfered food and medical supplies are replaced with war contraband, while Envers bribed the UN and Bulgarian authorities and took money from everyone else. A cave beneath the site was used historically for additional storage, and Envers made it a secret entrance in the depot floor. This gave him two options for smuggling: either buy space in UN trucks, or move it himself through the caves. It appears that all usage of the depot ended ten days ago. The UN reported it was unsafe due to a chemical spill, while Envers actually paid the militants to seal up and guard it. There is evidenced that the release of an unknown biological weapon was involved.

"The other site of interest is the town of Bredilovo, and particularly the Church of St. George (Sveti Georgi). It was once believed to have been a site of Bogomil worship." The Bogomils were a heretical Medieval sect in the Balkans. They had been charged with teaching Gnosticism, a heresy which held that the material world was evil, and that its "god" was really a demon. "More recent research has shown that the church existed centuries before the Bogomils, perhaps as early as ca. 200 AD. There is evidence that the church was built over the ruins of an even older, presumably pagan place of worship. What interests us, in any event, is what is below the building. It is built over a natural cave about as big as the sanctuary of the church, used as a crypt; and this appears to be only the first chamber of a cave of unknown size.

"The church is protected by national and international law as both a historical site and a place of worship. It has been used continuously by a small the Brotherhood of St. George, a monastic order dedicated to various forms of public charity. Bredilovo has served mainly as a home for the monks and their families." (Outside of the Roman Catholic church, monks were never required to be celibate.) "Because of the presence of preexisting humanitarian services, Bredilovo has been made the center of a UN safe zone." The other exotroopers either groaned or snickered. "Envers, of course, was able to thoroughly infiltrate the UN staff and premises. It appears that he used the church itself as the main entrance to the cave network.

"Our squads will execute two tasks simultaneously: Secure the depot, and flush out any remaining militants in the camp. Zaratustra will take his squad to accomplish the first objective, and mine will pursue the second. That is all."

Future site of Bredilovo, Bulgaria: ca. 500 BC.

Beneath the Balkan countryside, the sleeping Hunter woke.

We shall call this Hunter "he", for he will satisfactorily answer the definition of "male". He will be called Hunter as shorthand. His full, personal name is quite beyond the ability of humans to pronounce, but the name of his race for themselves will transliterate as Hunter. This is simplifying, however, for the different names his race has for "hunters" would put the Eskimoes' reputed array of terms for "snow" to shame. The most literal translation of his race's self-given name, jagutJag, would be Hunters of Hunters. This denotes not that they are the best of all hunters- though they would take that as a given- but means literally that they hunt other hunters.

This Hunter was alone, save for a companion who shall be called Huntress. Huntress was neither his mate nor his child. She was not yet five decades old (discounting the time in Sleep), and so not yet able to breed. (She could do this with or without a male Hunter; their means of reproduction are not quite like ours.) The Hunter was much, much older, even apart from his time in Sleep. He was past the point of numbering the years, having long sense settled for keeping track of decades and centuries; and even then, his recollection was becoming hazy. He did know that it was between his 2500th and 3000th years that their Clanship first made harbor on Earth, and that he had aged 2 millennia since then. He was past the point where he might mate with the Huntress, though his seed and that of a few other Hunters were in storage for the purpose. His chief hope was to train her in the Hunt, enough to be worthy to partake in his funeral feast and eventually to teach her own offspring in the Hunt.

How they have come to be alone, on a planet billions of lightyears from their home, is a long and complex story. It will suffice to say that their race's rules for the Hunt vary as much as men's ideas of gods, and assume fully comparable importance. Hunter, Huntress and their perished clansmen were, in a word, heretics. Inquisitions had expelled them from the Homeworld, the core colonies and the familiar Hunting Grounds. Crusades had driven them to the frontiers and beyond, into the uncharted wastes of the intergalactic space. At first, there were tens of thousands of the heretics' ships, each carrying an entire Clan. But martyrdom and apostasy took a steady toll, and shipwrecks, plague, mutinies, feuds and even vengeful Prey had claimed many more. The end result was decimation in reverse: not the loss of a tenth, but nine-tenths, again and again.

The fleet had already been reduced to a few hundred Clanships when they entered the Milky Way, just ahead of the 57th Crusade. To avoid detection, they had split up and shut down their hyperdrives. The solar system that was Earth's had been their rallying point. Only fifty ships made it. Then they beheld Hunters' paradise. At that time, Earth was in the throws of an ice age, giant Beasts still roamed every continent, and the genus _Homo_ had not yet dwindled to the single species _sapiens_. There had been Great Hunts to initiate the youths born in transit, and commemorate their discovery of the new Home Hunting Ground. To leave the Ground undisturbed, they had not settled the planet except for spartan Hunting camps, but had instead settled on the other planets, lifeless then and since.

After several cycles of Great Hunts, it had been decided to venture again to the stars, to seek news of the fate of the missing Clanships and seek out new Hunting Grounds. The Hunter had been captain of the first Fleet. For 200 years they had searched the galaxy. They found a few hundred habitable worlds, about a dozen of which had recognizable native sentient life. They found evidence of over a hundred of the Fleet's lost ships. Some had exploded, leaving nothing but distinctive clouds of radiation and debris behind. Several dozen of these signatures marked where a Tribe sub-fleet and a superior force of Crusaders had fought to mutual annihilation. Some had become ghost ships and derelicts. And a large number had made planetfall, some merely in the blaze of their doom but others to establish self-sustaining colonies. Some of those that had so landed had already returned to the stars, to colonize other worlds and even make trade or war with separate Hunter colonies. No attempt had been made to contact these Hunters, for their Ways had grown strange even in the eyes of the heretics.

And, the fleet had found Hard Game. _The_ Game.

The Hunters had a complex nomenclature for the hunted as well as hunters. The lowest of these taxa in their eyes were the Bloodless, living things like the insects of Earth, generally small and with clear fluid in place of wholesome blood. (After ages of deliberation, it had been decided that fluids of red, yellow and orange as well as the Hunters' own green would satisfy the definition of blood.) These were judged unworthy of hunting unless they proved to be pests, and unfit to eat unless the only alternative was starvation. Then there were Beasts, animals which fed only on plants. These were killed for food, but generally not considered fitting quarry in the ritual Hunts. The recognized exceptions were males in mating time; these had been accepted as trophies, when the Beast was large and fierce, and the kill was made with only a sword or knife. The primary objects of the trophy hunts, Game, were large and predatory animals. Highest of all were "Hunters", the _jag_. This was the term used for other intelligent species, though the _jagutJag_ did not precisely have such a concept. In their minds, a _jag_ was defined by two qualities, compared to which intellect as such was nearly secondary; these qualities might be termed Art and Honor. Art was approximately the use of intellect, especially tools and plans, while Honor was adherence to Rules. Honor was considered by far the most important of the two, a gift of the Creator (whose name translates as Lord of Life, but equally well as "Lord of Blood") to all His/Her true children. If and when_ jag_ could be made trophies in the Hunts was the chief source of division among the _jagutJags'_ various Rules, and the immediate cause of the heretics' exile. The heretics had nearly had a schism among themselves arguing whether humans had any quality of Honor.

The Hard Game were another species that had strained the Hunters' already elaborate taxonomy. The Hunter had found them first on a world where a Clanship had landed, but failed to lay enduring seed. There could be little doubt of the immediate cause. Next to where the Clanship had landed was the ship of another jag, and this ship was full of something like eggs, or spores. From these spores had come short-lived animate things which attacked Beasts, Game and Hunters before dying. Their victims lived for a while, about 3 days of Earth's cycles. Then, at the moment of death or shortly after came a new creature, which in another 3 Earth days metamorphosed into a fearsome, armored, merciless Game. Thus had the Clan perished. The Hard Game were judged to have some qualities of Art, but nothing resembling honor. They hunted all life indiscriminately, not only for food but as hosts for more spores, to make new game. It was only with great reluctance that the Hunter had loaded a few captured spores, including one of the large types from which spore-layers came, onto his ship.

When he returned, the other Hunters had been transfixed by this new Game. They had been diverted from all other sport by the Hard Game. They even captured perfectly worthy live trophies merely to expose them to the spore, fascinated by the many variations of Hard Game that came forth. As they moved on to new stars, they brought spores with them. One colony and several promising Hunting Grounds were stripped of life when the Hard Game escaped from control. On the Home Hunting Ground itself, two separate breaches were contained only by the use of antimatter, creating what men would know as the Sahara and central Australian deserts. Even so, enthusiasm for hunting the Hard Game only grew. Thus did the Hunters of Hunters breed their own destruction.

The Hunter himself had been ensnared in the sport. He turned his Clanship into a vessel for studying, capturing and finally breeding the Hard Game. Then, as his five-thousandth year passed, the Hunter returned from the stars to find the Home Colonies overrun by Hard Meat. Only a signal transmitter had answered his hail, and that broadcast a message of imminent death. He had responded with a desperate raid, in which he rescued the nestling that would be Huntress, at the cost of the lives of all but one of his crew. The ship itself had been damaged, and they had made for the Home Hunting Ground to repair the hyperdrive.

Hunter learned too late that his remaining crewman had been attacked by a spore. During the voyage to the Hunting Ground, a Hard Game burst from his body: not merely a warrior, but a Breeder, a layer of spores. He had hunted and fought the Game through his own ship, finally trapping it in an air lock as the ship entered Earth's atmosphere. He did not jettison it immediately, out of fear that it would cause a crash. As events proved, that happened anyway. At a critical moment, a guidance subsystem failed, and the ship crashed in a lake. He and young Huntress had only survived by entering Sleep.

Hunter awoke 3 weeks later. He emerged to find that the air lock had breached. The Breeder had long since escaped.

NEXT: A long Hunt, and human sacrifice


	5. Miracle of Father Simeon

**More development of Bredilovo and Hunter history...**

**Miracle of Father Simeon**

Site of Bredilovo, Bulgaria: ca. 215 AD

The name of the tribe would be lost to history. Like countless tiny people-groups before and since, they were obliterated, either by outright genocide or genetic and cultural assimilation, before the wider world could take note of their existence. They had only lived in the area for about a century, and would be gone in a few more. Scholars and linguists of later centuries will say far more about whom they were or were not related to than about who they were as a people. But one fact is known about them as long as any knowledge of them survives: They practiced human sacrifice.

The sacrificial procession arrived at dusk. The offering was a girl in her early teens, already married, made pregnant and then discarded by her husband after her womb was lost along with her first child. She was terrified but completely resigned, for the one thing more hideous than her fate was what would befall the tribe if the sacrifice were withheld. She was preceded by the chief priest, whose chief duties were reciting prayers and lighting holy fires to the god of the son. He, too, was resigned. Such rites would typically be accompanied (sincerely or otherwise) by exaggerated shows of sadness, piety or both. But this priest is silent, for he knew that this sacrifice was not to a god, at least not to one that might be pleased or placated by the usual methods.

Their destination was a cave, where a crude altar had been set up. The ritual was simple. They would light two torches, tie up the victim, commend his or (usually) her soul to the sun god, and run. It was understood that the god, demon or monster receiving the offering would only accept a live one, and that it would not approach the sacrifice until the torches burnt out. But this night, the torches were already lit, and a man stood in their path. He was a Roman, but he spoke to them in their own tongue. He then brandished a crude wooden cross, which the tribe at first took to be a symbol of the sun god, whom they represented with the swastika.

The gist of the man's message was that there was but one god, who made heaven and Earth and all things in them. It was against the one God's commandments to practice human sacrifice. They were about to sacrifice to a god either wholly imaginary, or actually a beast or an evil demon. The chief priest's answer startled him: The tribe knew very well that the god of the temple was evil. But, it would kill them all if they refused its offerings.

The missionary countered that he would not allow the woman to be killed, or left to die. If it were necessary, he himself would remain. If the being were indeed real, it was a demon which the sign of the Cross would drive away. The missionary was a little disconcerted when the priest gave little argument. Soon, the caravan had turned away. The priest quietly said that if the stranger sought his own death, it was not their place to stop him from finding it.

Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0227 April 16

It was widely said of UN "peacekeepers" that they were ineffectual at best, and actively corrupt at worst. Major Antonio Giordino, commander of the UN Bredilovo safe zone, fell shamelessly into the second category. Not content with merely collecting kickbacks to look the other way, he actively participated in Envers' various enterprises, and even started sideline operations of his own. He personally scheduled the use of space on UN trucks for smuggling. He demanded bribes from criminals and terrorists passing through, and extorted and stole from innocent refugees. He sold his own soldiers' supplies, up to and including guns and ammunition, directly into the black market. He even skimmed from Envers' own shipments. He showed the extent of his remorse, and his fear of being punished, by driving a bright red American SUV worth about 10 years of his lawful salary around the safe zone.

He was fearful now, however, as he drove to the safe zone's main check point. He had been awakened at midnight by word of Envers' demise. He had been told in the same message to expect "additional protection". Given the extent of his "sideline" operations, and the distinct possibility that these new "protectors" would be paid for by Envers' even more powerful buyers and sponsors, their arrival alarmed him even more than the prospect of being the next target of whomever killed Envers. Now, his frantic preparation had been interrupted by a vague call for assistance.

He stopped at a building just inside the gates to the safe zone's main camp. His mood improved somewhat, as this was one of the buildings reserved for searching female refugees. To avoid offending religious sensibilities, or giving Muslim extremists one more reason to call for war against the west, all searches of Muslim women were conducted indoors by female personnel. Inside, he saw a female security guard, and a figure of uncertain bulk shrouded by multiple layers of clothing, including a Muslim burkha and head scarf. The female guard stood still, obviously in fear. Now, the veiled figure advanced toward him. He said inanely, "You're not a woman, are you?"

The figure's arm twitched beneath the outer shawl. A jet of burning napalm sailed past him to strike his SUV. The force of the spray alone was enough to break a window, sending liquid napalm into the interior of the car. The spray ended in less than a second, but it was enough to turn the car into an unrecognizable mass of burning metal. "No," said the figure. "But I am an Albanian."

Zotgjakt shed his concealing garb. He was not wearing the outer helmet, only the inner helmet (which looked rather like a pilot's helmet) and an armored gas mask, but was otherwise in full tank destroyer armor. He then marched his captive out. He carried a weapon called a flame carbine, which looked very much like a "super soaker" water gun, down to twin tanks above the barrel and the hand-operated pump below it. The tanks held 1.5 liters of napalm, enough for about 1.5 seconds of fire. The pump was a backup source of compressed air, necessary as propellant for the spray, which came primarily from a smaller tank in the stock. Two extra bottles and a spare air tank hung from his waist, and a 15-liter reserve tank was on his back. As he walked, he replaced one tank, and hooked the empty one to the reserve to refill.

Behind Zotgjakt, the other finbacks entered the camp: Princip, Pavel and Lupov, and 2 squires, one on foot with more napalm and a compressor for Zotgjakt, and the other riding a six-wheeled drone called a squatter. Refugees emerged from the prefabricated barracks, but took no action. One of the UN staff, a sadistic accomplice of the major, fired a 14 cm rifle grenade at Zotjakt. The finback could have either shot the man first (as was their motto) or simply let the grenade hit. Instead, he set off a pair of ERA panels on his chest. The blast of flame, smoke and chaff disintegrated the grenade while it was still in flight, but to the inattentive and unknowledgeable, the blast appeared to be the impact of the grenade itself. Thus, it seemed that the finback took a direct hit and not only survived, but remained on his feet with armor undamaged. The shooter tried to retreat into the midst of the refugees, but they shoved him back and finally knocked him down. Zotgjakt strode toward him, and the refugees retreated. Within moments, he was standing over the peace keeper, who stared up at him in horror. He pointed the flamethrower, then lowered it. He stooped and grabbed the guard's right hand. There was a grisly series of pops and crunches. It was only when he let go that the man found the presence of mind to scream.

A shot rang out behind Zotjakt. He whirled to find that it had been fired by the major, into his own head. He then looked to the crowd of refugees. They showed neither happiness nor outrage, only anxious wondering what would happen next. The finback spoke in Geg dialect: "We expect no gratitude from you. But remember that we have not done you only evil."

The finbacks marched straight to the church. The church's ancient architecture proved to be supplemented with modern doors and windows, so Princip felt no regret when he knocked the door off its hinges with a blow from his open hand. As he stepped through the door, a firm, calm voice said, "Halt, sir." He turned to see a man, perhaps in his late 40s or early 50s, with a rosary around his neck and an AK47 in his hands.

Princip respectfully lowered his head. "Pardons, father."

"I give you pardon. And there is no need to explain why you are here. I could explain that better than you." Princip asked, and the father allowed, for the other finbacks to enter. They listened attentively to the priest as he explained the whole history of the church, starting with the Miracle of Father Simeon.

Site of Bredilovo: 213 AD

The missionary, whose name was Simeon, awoke somewhere in the cave. He was upright bur unable to move; there seemed to be a shell around him. He heard noises in the dark, including two hisses, one in answer to the other. By now, he was sure these creatures were beasts, not devils, but a form of beast never known before. He had caught only a glimpse of the creature which had seized him, by just the light of the moon. He could still picture them vividly. The thing had been skeletal in appearance. It had had a bulbous, crested head, without any sign of eyes. He had glimpsed its open mouth, and seen a glassy beak in place of teeth, with what looked like a toothed proboscis inside. It also had what struck him as an _artificial _look. If he had lived in a later age, the word that crossed his mind would have been _mechanical_.

The creatures' feet made clicking sounds on the rock. He could hear one of them moving away. Then, the sound of its return. There was more hissing, which seemed somehow excited, and a slight "clunk" as something was set down in front of him.

Suddenly, a bright flash lit the cave. He saw that there were seven of the beasts- six, rather, for one of them fell with a hole in its chest. A terrible roar echoed through the cave, and the beasts answered with screams. There were two more flashes in succession. Something like a ball of white fire burned away the head of a second beast. Another fire ball struck the cave's far wall, causing a patch of the wall to glow red. By this light, he could see the beasts running, apparently not in flight but straight for their attacker. There was another flash, and then a sound of slashing and stabbing blades. A single beast came running back. A swiftly moving disc came flying after it. It seemed to seek the creature, and finally hit it just as it was retreating out of Simeon's view. Its hammer-like head came tumbling back. There was a loud hissing; this was not from the creature, but from yellow gore that poured out of its body.

Simeon then looked down, and saw what had been placed in front of him. It was as big as a pumpkin, and looked somewhat like a pomegranate. The outer surface was ribbed and slightly angular. On top, there was a threefold cleft, like the bite mark from a leech. With a noise like the splitting of a melon, it broke open. Within, something moved, and then emerged. It had legs like a crab, a tail like a scorpion, and a head tiny head tucked between its front legs. It stood up, spreading its legs to either side of the sphere. Then, it jumped.

The creature seemed to stop in mid-air. Its tail lashed, and its legs curled and uncurled, while the corrosive yellow fluid spurted from its belly. Then a spear that transfixed the creature seemed to materialize, followed by a tall, masked figure that held it. Simeon immediately identified it as an angel. The angel grabbed the hatchling's body by the tail and pulled it down, thus removing it and slicing most of its body in two in the process. Then the angel turned to Simeon, leaning in as if trying to decide what to do with him. The angel turned aside to pick up the severed head of the beast. Then it struck the shell that held the missionary, shattering it with one blow. It walked away without a second glance, and disappeared in midstride.

Back in his ship, the Hunter drained the blood from the Game's skull, and peeled away the exoskeleton. He thought back on all he had done in the last 700 years. When the ship had crashed, the bed of the lake had caved in, and the ship had ended up in the limestone caves beneath. In a century or so, the lake had dried up and filled in with silt, to become a wide but shallow basin. Meanwhile, the Breeder escaped into the tunnels, and Hunter pursued it.

The Hard Game, of all creatures, were unique in being both able to detect a stealthed Hunter, and being themselves invisible to the Hunters. They could detect Hunters, simply because they had no eyes. They were invisible because Hunters saw mainly in infrared, while they maintained the same temperature as their surroundings and so did not have infrared signatures. The Hunter could track the Breeder by its scent, but the Breeder could usually pick up his scent at longer ranges, and thus had little trouble avoiding him. The Breeder further frustrated the hunter by laying hundreds and thousands of eggs in side passages. Repeatedly, he had to break off the chase to check for new drones. He knew he could not kill the queen while drones were around, because the drones would begin breeding for themselves.

The hunt dragged on for a century. Four times before the end, the Breeder and Hunter fought each other. The first time, very early in the Hunt, the Hunter found the Breeder entrenched in the usual fashion with spores and five drones. The drones and scores of spore were handily massacred, and the Breeder itself escaped only when the spilled blood of itself and its progeny dissolved enough limestone for a new exit. That would be the one and only time the Breeder stayed in one place. The second time, the Breeder doubled back and ambushed the Hunter. Both had been grievously wounded, and the Hunter had needed a year to grow back a severed arm. The third time, the Breeder tried to break into his ship. The fourth time, the Hunter brought the Breeder to bay in a dead-end loop, only to have it charge him. The last battle occurred 30 years into the Hunt. After that, the Breeder settled in to a routine of carving new escape routes with acid blood and bile, diverting the Hunter with eggs and drones, and generally delaying confrontation until its progeny were numerous enough to take the offensive.

In the end, it took the help of the Huntress to catch the Breeder. The Hunter spent a decade training her, and another decade guiding her through practice hunts against spore and drones. Then, in a final, year-long push, they chased the Breeder from one end of the caverns to the other and halfway back again. At the finish, the Breeder was wounded, and trapped in a passage with the Hunter behind, the Huntress ahead, and no place to hide except the loop from which it had made its last escape. Before its enemies could close in, the Breeder retreated into the loop and brought the cave roof down behind it. Wounded and without food as it was, there was only one thing the Breeder could do: Go into hibernation. The Hunter knew better than to consider it harmless. Countless spore remained in the caves, too many for him to find. If ever enough of them grew into drones, the Breeder would need only to summon them in its dreams to dig it back out.

The Hunter had spent six hundred years since then mainly in Sleep, emerging once or twice a century to check the state of the cave, and perhaps take a few trophies of terrestrial Game and jag. The native jag had long since removed themselves from the area, save for occasional nomads, adventurers and fugitives. The tribe's cluster of villages were the first settlements in centuries, and the Hunter had been unprepared for it. He could never have imagined what he had just seen: jag offering their own to the Hard Game. He was lucky to have caught it when he did. There had been ten drones in all, and they had been cunning and wary. He had had to wait for the sacrifice to find their breeding chamber, and then follow one of them to the chamber where they were obtaining spores. He had planted a bomb to destroy the spores, then destroyed the drones in the breeding chamber.

The hunter would be far more vigilant in coming centuries and millennia. He planted sensors and traps where he knew the highest concentrations of spores were. He made arrangements for his ship computer to bring him out of Sleep if enough alarms went off at a time. Several times, he came forth to find that one or a few spores had become new Game. These he hunted down and destroyed, creating new legends of the destroying angel.

Meanwhile, Simeon the missionary was found alive by the tribe in the morning, and told how the destroying angel had delivered him from the beasts. The chief accepted baptism, and the priests followed suit. Simeon became a Father, and founded a monastery, later dedicated to St. George, where both Romans and people of the tribe came to learn from him. The woman he saved became a nun, and married a monk. The monks would translate some Scripture, prayers and creeds into the tribe's own language, and a written excerpt of one of the prayers would be the only sample of the language to survive. A church was built on the very site of the cave, which was used as a crypt. Simeon insisted that a very thick brick wall be built across the cave, and a few people noticed that he was never willing to be in the church after dark.

Bredilovo: 315 April 16, 2044

Throughout the telling of the story, the priest was insistent that the church had never been used by Envers. "The passage is there, but it is walled off, as it has been since Simeon's time. Envers wanted to use it, wanted to knock the wall down. But we would not let him, even when he threatened our lives."

The priest further opined that Envers' "cave network" was largely imaginary. He pulled out a map showing what was known of the cave system. "As you can see, there are many caves. But they are not all connected, and even those that are may well prove impassable. There is flooding, cave-ins, places where the passage narrows or goes up or down abruptly… Difficult for a lone man to get through, impassable for one with a burden of any size. Envers always boasted that he could move anything to anywhere through the caves, and when I first saw him, he seemed to believe it. But he realized very quickly that there was nothing he could do in the caves he could not to better with UN trucks." The priest spat and gestured rudely at the mention of the UN.

"To be sure, Envers found some uses for caves to conceal contraband, and to move short distances. But I am reasonably sure that only one passage was used for significant, long- distance trafficking, and it is not even accessible from our cave. This section is sizable enough for men to walk in, and has one significant opening within the disputed zone. But we are sure it is also the most dangerous segment." He then pointed to the marked location of a cave-in. "This is what separates this segment from the other caves. We are almost certain the cave-in was deliberately caused, to keep something in. It is certain that most deaths and disappearances in the caves are on the other side of the cave-in. You have not said so, but I am sure you have sent men here." He pointed to the very location where Zaratustra's squad had been sent. "If you do not recall them, they will die."

NEXT: Zaratustra disarms an alien.


	6. The Parasitoids

**I often start writing a story by writing what I think of as a vignette, a draft of at least one scene late in the projected story. This chapter is built around the first vignette for this story.**

**The Parasitoids**

10 km from Bredilovo: 0235

"We have the depot in sight," Zaratustra said. Ahead of him was a stout box of a building. He scanned it with the radar scope (officially called "Narrow-Band Radiation active imaging device") fitted on his semiautomatic 14.5mm sniper rifle. It showed the depot and its surroundings in shades of purple and green. "The main door is closed, locked, welded shut, and barricaded with a tractor-trailer. There is no evidence of a breach. No guards are in sight. Correction…Twelve, repeat, twelve individuals are present, outside the facility. There are two vehicles, matching the configuration of _technicals'_. Buva, Vu"s, Kolkrak- your orders are to neutralize at your discretion."

If Princip was well-known as a religious man, Zaratustra was widely regarded as the epitome of godlessness. His name was from the works of Nietzsche. He was a member of a notorious cult called the Aryan Ophites, which combined Naziism with Gnostic Christian heresy. He had been a member particularly of a now-defunct "fundamentalist" branch of the movement, which had rebelled violently over a relaxation of racial criteria for membership. The immediate cause of his incarceration by Serbia, just before hostilities with Kosovo began, was the murder of five other Ophites during the schism.

Even apart from his beliefs, there was much that made him strange and dangerous. A team of psychologists had published a paper defining him as "hyperactive, obsessive-compulsive and dissociative". The most striking abnormality was that he showed no response to pain. This had led to the deformity of his right hand: a knuckle injury, self-inflicted during excessive calisthenics, had gone unheeded by him until it went gangrenous. The infected finger was replaced with a prosthesis, which unfortunately did not bend. He also had the strange ability to stay awake for 72 hours straight, and then go into a catatonic sleep state for 24 hours. Finally, he occasionally saw and heard things which were not there, or at least which others could not see and hear. In his own mind, these were very different things.

This was an example of the most profound peculiarities of his character: He seemed unable to treat his own impressions and statements as anything but reality. He had never been known to tell knowing, outright lies. His examiners had suspected he was incapable of it. Neither would he break an oath or disobey an order, if he accepted it in the first place. And, if he saw something (or thought he did), he accepted it at face value. Significantly, unlike typical delusional psychotics, he could respond to his doubtful perceptions in a fully rational way. Perhaps this was because the stuff of his brain was more stable, or, perhaps it was because the lack of fear or doubt of his perceptions relieved a strain that broke other wayward minds.

This quality came quite starkly into play as he looked upon a figure, crouched just inside of the depot walls, that was certainly alive, but equally certainly not human. It was roughly humanoid in form, with both bones and an exoskeleton. An ovoid organ in the front of a long, crested head showed as an active radiation source. On careful examination, he made out a very complex mouth: There were, as best he could make out, two sets of jaws and teeth, one inside the other. Four short tubes protruded from its back. It had a long tail with a sharp-looking tip. He looked with curiosity more than surprise, and not just because he had had a good enough idea what to expect. He would not have been the man he was if he were prone to doubting his own perceptions.

"Visual sighting of potential acquisition," he said into a separate channel. "Confirmed: NOT HUMAN. Matches description of end-phase parasitoid."

There was an audible click before the answer came: "Message received. Take at least one specimen alive." The voice had a French accent, and was certainly not one of his squadmates.

"Order confirmed. ONE alive."

As he spoke, the parasitoid raised its head, turned, and seemed to look directly at him. He pulled the trigger. The 14.5 mm bullet did not quite penetrate the bunker wall. But, the detonation of its explosive-incendiary easily went the rest of the way, sending a spray of shrapnel and white-hot gas into the creature's head. The fiery spray bored through the muzzle and back out the crest, laying open the entire right side of its head. A spray of flesh and fluids burned holes in metal and concrete. It fell immediately, but thrashed about, flailing its arms and tail and making a contralto screech. After about 20 seconds, it grew silent and still, except for a rhythmic thumping of its tail.

The guards of the depot were more above-average mercenaries, hired by Envers with a subsidy from a wealthy associate. Four each sat in a pair of trucks with heavy weapons mounted in the bed- a ubiquitous form of improvised weapons carrier first dubbed "technicals" by American soldiers. The particular weapons were unusually effective: a battery of four 14.5 mm machine guns in one, and a 106 mm recoilless gun in the other. Four more men patrolled on foot. All eyes went up when Zaratustra fired his shot. One of them looked aside He was opening his mouth to shout when a flying toilet seat crushed his windpipe.

"I was out of shurikens," Sunflower said with a shrug. The Tick, now collarless, fired on the recoilless gun from behind, killing or disabling the crew with two short bursts of fragmentation grenades. He then gave Sunflower in a brief but unmistakable glare.

On the other side of the compound, the Flea rushed into action with the captured Gatling gun. The other technical was starting its engine, and the machine guns were already coming to bear on Zaratustra. The Flea flipped a switch. The gun ran for 10 seconds and fired a thousand rounds, with two effects. First, the truck flew apart from the impact of several hundred rounds of full-sized 7.62 NATO rounds. Second, the Flea staggered back, spun 270 degrees and fell over with the gun still firing. When the ammo ran out, the gun whined as the barrels continued to turn, until the Flea yanked out a power cable. He was still on his back, trying to put the electrical system back together and connect the reserve belt at the same time when the three remaining guards ran up. They raised their rifles to fire point-blank. Then a squire's 8 mm gun cut down two of them. The third managed to dive to the cover of the burning truck. He readied a rifle grenade, and was about to fire when the Flea sat up. He raised a revolver, a freakish thing chambered for 12.76X99 mm heavy machine gun cartridges, and said, _"Go ahead. Make my day."_

The mercenary dropped his gun and raised his hands.

Zaratustra panned over the building, looking for the best way in. There was much damage to the structure. Almost every door had been battered open. The heaviest door was still on its hinges; but, several holes had been punched through the metal plating. The floor in front of it was destroyed. So was the floor of the basement below. The damage continued for a meter into the limestone below. The concrete, rock and metal all appeared melted. He identified fifteen human bodies, most of which had been reduced to piles of bones. The damage, he decided, resembled nothing so much as hyena kills. The bones had been picked clean, then shattered and drained of marrow. Only the skulls were more or less intact, apart from massive punctures to the forehead or the back of the head. Four had their rib cages burst. These four were clustered in an improvised infirmary, which held four bodies. An attempt had been made to seal the room from outside. When he scanned the depot garage, some kind of interference blocked his scans. That, he decided, would be where he would enter.

Two demolition shells from Sunflower's recoilless gun made a hole big enough to enter through. "Stay here, and watch this opening," he ordered. "If anyone or anything besides me comes out, shoot it." He stepped inside and surveyed the garage. There was a strange substance on the walls and ceiling, with a fine, detailed structure rather like the inside of a rib cage. This was what had interfered with the NBR scope from outside. He saw four bodies cocooned in the stuff. Cause of death was obvious: each one had a massive hole in the rib cage. He also noted at least twenty ribbed, geodesic globes, some of them open.

"I think that the number of specimens has been underestimated," he said. Then he saw the flash of a radiation source. He fired almost instantly, blowing a parasitoid's head to pieces. But two more of the parasitoids came running along the ceiling and down the wall, one behind the other. He missed with one shot, hit the hindmost in the back with his next shot, and caught the other in the abdomen as it leaped to the floor, tearing it into wt its narrow waist. He used his last shot on a parasitoid that suddenly came charging out from under a trailer on the other side of the garage. It tumbled back, with the fiery light of the incendiary round lighting up its rib cage and smoke coming out of its mouth and the tubes in its back. Then he stepped to one side, just enough to dodge yet another parasitoid that dropped down from above.

One kick was enough to throw it against the wall; it was very light compared to a human of similar height. Zaratustra lunged in, planting a foot on the creature's chest. It

lashed out with its tail, knocking him back. The alien charged, reaching out with its

arms and snapping its proboscis. The exotrooper caught hold of one arm in a judo move,

throwing the creature over his shoulder while keeping a grip on the arm. When the creature snapped at his ankle, he twisted its arm. There was a horrific series of snaps, pops and crunches, as the forearm twisted almost 360 degrees. Acid spurted from the elbow. Where it touched Zaratustra's armor, it hissed and left black marks, but did not penetrate. The alien screamed and twisted away, leaving its fractured arm behind. It made a writhing retreat. Zaratustra rushed in and grabbed it by the tail, hauling it off its feet and hurling it against a wall.

The creature slid to the floor. A thin splatter of acid sizzled on the wall where it had struck. Zaratustra was already on top of it again. He picked it up and

wrapped his right arm around its neck. "Do not resist, and I will do no more harm!" he

said. Its only response was to tear into his abdominal armor with its proboscis. He seized the extended proboscis and tightened his hold. "Your resistance is contrary to self-interest!" he continued. Behind him, the tail drew back and then struck with lightning speed at the plate which covered his hindquarters.

The scream was so hideous that the Flea and the Tick disregarded their orders and rushed inside. They were just in time to see Zaratustra finish hog-tying the parasitoid with an iron bar. The skirmishers stared in disbelief at the creature. Zaratustra stood up and pulled its severed tail out of his armor. "We must secure this creature for extraction," he said. "But before we go, there are three more we must account for!"

NEXT: Knight takes Queen (or vice versa?)


	7. Capturing the Queen

Taking the queen

**Taking the queen**

10 km from Bredilovo: 0300 April 16 2044

"So, how long has command known about these parasite things?" the Tick asked sardonically.

"That information was not made known to me," Zaratustra replied. "From what I can gather, evidence of their existence has been known, if not always believed, since the mid-twentieth century. And their designation is parasitoid', not parasite', and the distinction is quite significant. The harm caused by a true parasite is limited: It always stops short of killing the host. This is, indeed, in the parasite's own interests, as it would die itself without a living host. A parasitoid lives in approximately the same manner as a parasite, but is, from a clinical perspective, less perfectly adapted. It does not limit the harm it causes, but grows until the host can no longer support it, and dies. The parasitoid, unlike the parasite, is able to survive, either by acquiring a new host or metamorphosing into a new form with a different mode of life.

"The parasitoid's lifecycle has five known stages: The first is the egg, the second is the ectoparasitoid, the third is the endoparasitoid, the fourth stage is the free-living larva, and the fifth is the adult parasitoid called a drone. But this does not represent a full cycle. There is evidence the drones reproduce, but by all indications they do not, and cannot, lay eggs. Instead, they implant or gestate in their own bodies embryos which grow directly into small but fully-formed version of the adult morph. The eggs are believed to be laid by another form, which either develops from a drone or else matures into a different morph from the larva. This inferred final stage is called a queen. The only direct evidence of this stage is a single sighting forty years ago. But, we may be able to change that. The eggs must come from somewhere, and these eggs in particular may have been laid very recently. If so, whatever laid them is still nearby. I have been given express instructions, in this event, to investigate, and if possible to capture the living specimen. But, I will not order any of you to assist. Will any volunteer?"

The men immediately offered their service, the Flea first and loudest. "Very well," said Zaratustra. "I shall report this action as Operation Flea Bait'. Flea- you are the bait."

They located the trapdoor at the rear of the garage, under the trailer that had served as one parasitoid's hiding place. Zaratustra and the other finbacks all went down together, accompanied by one squire, a new member named Martinez. The Tick was pretty sure Martinez was a woman (the distortion of her mask made it hard to be sure), and that she was a member of the "Bio-Deterrence" division sent to monitor Zaratustra. The descent was by an improvised steel stairway, which creaked under their weight. (Even the Flea massed over 150 kg in armor.) They found themselves in what was otherwise a dead-end offshoot of a larger tunnel, which itself ended about ten meters ahead. In the other direction, it went downhill. "They could not have smuggled anything out through this tunnel," Zaratustra said. "It must intersect with another, further down the line."

A short distance down the tunnel, they found a stack of crates next to a hole in the floor. There was an elevator, improvised from a wood pallet, cables, pulleys and a motorized winch, set up for raising and lowering crates. The floor of another chamber or tunnel was four meters below. The Flea jumped down. The others followed by sliding down the elevator cables. They found themselves in a larger tunnel, next to a larger stack of crates- and about a dozen eggs. Martinez took a close look. "Interesting… some of these eggs have calcium carbonate encrustations. Those must be years old, if not decades or centuries. But others are completely clean. They must be recently laid."

While she spoke, the finbacks drew their weapons. Sunflower unlimbered an MG45, an antique weapon that fired 30 rounds per second. His main duty would be scanning the cave, with an NBR scope fitted like a monocle in his helmet. The Flea (who had left the Gatling gun behind by Zaratustra's order) drew his .50 caliber revolver. The Tick drew his usual weapon, a 3cm automatic grenade launcher, and loaded a belt of flechette canisters. Zaratustra drew his 12-gauge, the only weapon he had brought with him. His gaze fixed on the Flea's revolver. "Let me see that," he said. Martinez shook her head furiously. The Flea gave it to him anyway.

Zaratustra opened the cylinder, which held five rounds. He took out four, spun the chamber. Then, after a moment's pause, he stuck it under his face mask and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. "It never works," he said, almost mournfully. "Any gun, any number of bullets- one way or another, it always fails. I know; I have tried, many times. The greater Powers have an interest in me, you see, and they will not allow me to die. That is how you may know we will prevail." He returned the gun, turned and walked down the tunnel. After a moment of stunned, still silence, the others followed.

"Never do that again!" hissed Martinez.

"I didn't know he would do that," said the Flea. "Besides, I need a reason before I disobey an order from my commander."

"What the hell brought that on, anyway?" said the Tick.

"Lack of sleep," said Martinez.

"Zed needs sleep?! C'mon, he stays awake for three days at a time!"

"Yes, but he has been awake longer than that… He hasn't slept in at least seventy-six hours. He has fatigue like anyone else, only, he doesn't notice it, any more than he does pain, fear or hunger."

"Doesn't notice hunger'?! Haven't you seen him eat? He's like a starving bear in a deli!"

"We're almost certain somebody _trained_ him to do that. He actually does not overeat, he just eats normal amounts very quickly. And we found out, when we tried to adjust his habits, that he can quite easily _forget _to eat. Likewise, we had to train him into a sleep cycle that would keep him healthy and mentally stable- at least as much as possible. While we were working that out, we established that when he stayed awake longer- the longest we recorded was 90 hours- other aspects of his condition got worse: Compulsive and obsessive behavior… Self-injury… hallucinations…"

Zaratustra halted abruptly. Martinez flinched. But the sergeant simply stared at a fork in the tunnel. "Sunflower: Where do these tunnels go?"

"The one on the left narrows to unnavigable size within twenty meters," the tank destroyer answered. "The one on the right- it appears to end in a larger chamber, of uncertain size… There seems to be interference."

"Then that is our objective," said Zaratustra. "But first, we must go back, to collect as many of those eggs as we can carry."

They obeyed. Zaratustra himself took two of them, one under each arm, and strode back the other way. As the others gathered their eggs, there was a moist crack and a shout. Zaratustra turned to see the Flea's helmet come bouncing down the tunnel, with an ectoparasite wrapped around it. He set down one egg, grabbed the ectoparasitoid's tail and swung it against the wall until it went still. Oozing acid melted steadily into the cave floor. From deep in the tunnel, there was a contralto scream, then, a faint but audible clicking of chitin-covered feet.

Zaratustra took the other egg in his hand, and pointed his sidearm at the one on the ground. The dark wraith shape of a drone came rushing into view, only to halt abruptly. It screamed and hissed threateningly, but made no move to attack. Zaratustra kicked the egg toward it, and it lunged to seize the globe with both hands. It crouched and screamed another warning, cradling the egg protectively. Zaratustra pointed the gun at the egg in his hand. The drone moved back, still hissing. Zaratustra advanced after it.

When they reached the fork, the drone started to go left. Zaratustra raised the gun in warning, and the drone went right instead. He followed it. After a short distance, the drone dropped out of sight with a final shriek. He stood, waiting. Then, a much larger shape reared up and screamed so loud his own thoughts faded before the din. Nonetheless, he stood his ground, still unphased. Two drones suddenly emerged, rushing straight for him. He brought them down with two slugs each, then smashed the egg and the parasitoid within against the tunnel wall.

The gore of the slain parasitoids rapidly widened and deepened the tunnel. The giant creature that could only be the queen rushed forward, first running where the tunnel had expanded enough and then hauling itself up to crawl through the tunnel. Zaratustra reached the main tunnel just ahead of the queen. One long arm shot out, coming within half a meter of catching him. The queen got no further, but thrashed in place. The frilled crest scraped the ceiling, and the shoulder of the extended arm pressed at an odd angle against the tunnel mouth. That was when the others came up behind him. "She's stuck!" exclaimed the Flea. "She can't come any further forward or back!"

"Yeah, great," said the Tick. "So what do we do with her?"

"Test its reactions," said Zaratustra. "Give me an egg." When the response was not immediate, he turned, and Martinez almost reflexively thrust one of the globes into his hands. He held it out, and when he moved side to side, the queen's head moved to track it. It became more agitated, and managed to reach a little further. He set the globe on the floor and rested one foot on it. "Ah, yes. I give you permission to withdraw, and it will probably behoove you to do so." At that, he blasted the egg, spraying its contents right in the queen's face.

The others were already dropping their eggs and turning to run. The globes tumbled along the floor like soccer balls. The queen caught hold of a stalagmite and hauled itself forward. Its left shoulder smashed through the wall, bleeding and limp, and the queen was free. It took a moment to stand up, and was a little to tall to do so fully. Zaratustra beat a more judicious retreat. He looked behind to see the queen gaining speed as two grasshopper-like legs pumped faster. It used the longer of two pairs of arms for support, and a huge coiled abdomen trailed behind like a hermit crab's borrowed shell. It was stepping around the rolling eggs, so he kicked a few more in its direction for good measure.

The Flea managed to jump up the elevator shaft, catching hold at the top to pull himself up. Martinez followed in a similar fashion, while the Tick shimmied up the elevator cables. When they tried to lift Sunflower, the motor burned out. The other exotroopers hauled him up by turning the winch with their hands. They had it halfway back down when Zaratustra arrived. He leaped onto the pallet and jumped the rest of the way up, smashing the boards in the process. A second or so later, the queen reared up, with what was left of the pallet around its/her neck.

Zaratustra emerged from the trapdoor just ahead of the queen. The creature erupted out like a cobra from a basket. Trails of gasoline abruptly ignited on either side, trapping her in a lane of fire. Ahead of her was an open trailer and loading ramp, and Zaratustra stood at the top. She shifted the tip of her abdomen to the right, and extended a three-meter ovipositor with a sharp spike on the tip. Then, with a fearsome scream, she charged like a jousting knight. Zaratustra stood till what seemed like just after the last possible moment. Then, as the spike shot forward and a skeletal arm reached out, Zaratustra threw an egg. The queen impulsively shifted left to catch it. It was all Zaratustra needed to duck under the arm, leap over the ovipositor and leave the queen going full speed for the back of the trailer. There was a resounding clang, and the whole trailer lurched forward a fraction of a meter.

The finbacks and squires rushed in. The queen lay still within. Only the ovipositor hung out of the trailer. As they watched, the sphincter blow the spine flexed and expelled an egg. "Now that," said the Flea, "is what I call _wicked pussy_!" They pushed the ovipositor inside, and hastily shut the door. Then they powered up the trailer's refrigeration unit.

"All available evidence indicates that they go dormant in extreme cold," Zaratustra said. "This should keep it subdued until we are across the border!"


	8. The Ship

The Ship

**The Ship**

Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0330 April 16 2044

Two columns of a dozen trucks each approached the safe zone. Six bore the symbols of UN relief services, but the rest had the markings of private contractors. Above them, three 10 cm-wide discs floated on transparent parachutes. As the private trucks passed the 2 km mark, the first of the discs exploded. The convex metal face of the disc blew outward and apart. Diamond-shaped dimples became long, slender arrows. Then they hit. The fifth truck in line on the left took the brunt of the blast. Several of the largest arrows, capable of penetrating about 3 cm of steel, hit the windshield. But there was no shattering glass or flames from a wrecked engine. Instead, the truck "body" tore and peeled away as the fabric cover it was, revealing a blocky, tracked APC. The other two discs fired. One hit a target that was what if seemed to be, except that the wrecked truck proved to have a 12 cm mortar in the back. The other blew away another fabric shell, revealing an antique T34 tank.

A small drone recorded the scene, and sent the information back to two squires who manned a 10 cm mortar on the far side of the safe zone. (Actually, the mortar was not quite 10 cm, but 98 mm, a caliber selected decades earlier for the express purpose of circumventing a treaty that limited artillery of 10 cm and up. Such fine distinctions were disregarded by users.) One of the squires transmitted a report: "There are two dozen vehicles of unknown type and armament. At least two of them are disguised armor: So far, we've exposed an M113 and a goddamn T34."

"Fire more EFP devices, then some scatterable anti-personnel mines," Princip ordered. "I will send the drone to establish a road block."

"We should withdraw," Zotgjakt said.

"Yes we should. But we need to see what is in the caves. Father- let us see what is behind the wall. There is something evil and terrible beneath this town. I know your way as been to keep it closed off and secret, and you have done well to hold it back this long. But the evil has already slipped its bonds, and will do so again. If we are to stop it, we must see where it began."

The priest nodded sadly. "I know. I will help you, but I cannot do so happily." He took out a pry bar, and lifted a slab of the floor to reveal a set of stairs. "Follow me."

The lieutenant went down, accompanied by Zotgjakt, Pavel and a squire named Petrovic, the one with Zotgjakt's extra equipment. They found themselves in a catacomb between rows of stone ossuaries. Pavel, who had been educated in the history of the Balkans and had told Princip all of what he knew about the church, examined a number of stone carvings. "Most of these look Medieval, similar to the stellae of Bosnia," he said. "The stellae were assumed to be Bogomil until the late 20th century, and even now some sources repeat that mistake. It's long since been established that the stellae were made by a variety of groups. But, there is ample evidence of syncretism. Take this figure here." He pointed to a very stylized figure that looked like a man with horns. "This is an example of the horned god', the archetype of Pan, usually associated with fertility or hunting, or both. Taken out of context, it could easily be mistaken for the Christian figure of Satan, reinforcing the misconception of heresy."

"So, do you think the Bogomils were not heretics?" said the priest.

"Well, if they did teach what they are said to have taught, they were heretics from the orthodox Christian perspective- and from their own perspective, orthodoxy' would have been equally heretical," Pavel said. "But there's no way to know how much truth there was to the charge. Maybe the charge was a willful invention of their enemies. Maybe they were conflated with an unrelated Gnostic group, the same way your church and the Church of Bosnia were mislabeled as Bogomil. Maybe they started out as basically orthodox, but turned to heresy later. Maybe just a few turned to heresy. Maybe preexisting heretics joined the movement for their own reasons. We just don't know, and since virtually all we know about them was written by their enemies, we never will."

The priest frowned. "All you say is reasonable… But make no mistake, there were heretics. There still are. Some of them are in your own country, your own leadership: the Ophites, the New Bogomils'. Do not trust them. And I beg you, whatever you find in the caves, destroy it, or bury it deeper still. At all costs, keep it from the hands of the heretics. For those who think the world itself evil, there is no limit on the evil they might do against it… And now, look upon this."

He pointed at a slab at the back of the chamber. The figures on it were recognizable as a sequence, telling a story. The first showed something like a comet, with a swastika on its head (a distinct Slavic version with curved hooks), descending to the base of a mountain. The next showed a skeletal human corpse with something like a snake emerging from its belly. The snake had two sets of jaws, one inside the other. The third picture showed the snake enlarged to titanic size, encircling a stylized village of tiny houses and an oversized church. The final picture showed the snake being slain by an angel with a mask on its face and a spear in its oversized fist. "The serpent is the demon of the caves. Its slayer is the angel of Simeon," said the father. "It may be that neither is quite what it is thought to be. And it may be that, if you enter the cave, one is as likely as the other to destroy you. You are warned; now do as you wish."

Princip put his fist through the back wall.

There were intersecting caverns, but an unmistakable main passage went straight ahead and downhill. When they had traveled five hundred meters, they stopped to examine a striking find: a human skeleton, with clothes and some of its skin still intact, partially covered by carbonate. "No question when this guy died," Pavel said. The preserved clothing included a scarlet arm band with the swastika, the angular version whose infamy had driven the symbol out of common usage. "I wonder what happened to his head…"

"I wonder how this happened," Zotgjakt said. He pointed to a fist-sized hole in the body's ribcage. The edges were noticeably blackened.

Still further ahead, about 2 km from the church, the passage met a much larger chamber. That was when a shape suddenly appeared from the darkness. It was a golden big cat, like a lion without a mane, and as large as a bear. It seemed to shine with a light well beyond what came from the finbacks' lights. It roared, and when the finbacks only stared it pounced. Lupov fired a 12.76 machine gun, but the bullets only went through the cat. Then the cat fell upon them, only to vanish abruptly. "That was a hologram!" Pavel exclaimed. "It looked like a Pleistocene cave lion! They may have lasted longer in the Balkans than anywhere else, you know- perhaps up to 2000 years ago. I wonder… Might the hologram have been taken from a living animal?"

They moved into the chamber. They could not tell its size, but it measured in hundreds in meters. The floor rose gently up, especially where boulders and silt had piled up around the center. Stalactites, stalagmites and complete columns of carbonate were everywhere. It took a moment to see that the greater part of the floor of the cave was a broad, silver wing, rather like the fin of a manta ray, heavily encrusted with carbonate.

"This has been here thousands of years, no more or less," Pavel said. "It certainly didn't come from anywhere near here."

"That would explain a lot, wouldn't it?" said Zotgjakt.

Once they made out the shape of the wing, they then saw evidence of a fuselage. At the subtle joining of the two was a protruding tube. At the end of the tube, partly obscured by stalactites, was an open doorway

The Hunter awoke.

He was puzzled for a time what had triggered this latest alarm. It had been triggered by a motion sensor just inside the broken airlock. But, there was nothing visible in infrared, nor were there detectable pheromones from the Hard Game. Then he looked at the mist which hugged the floor. Disturbances marked the footprints of the intruders, and he was able soon enough to get some notion of their size and shape. They were certainly not Hard Game, and they seemed too robust to be native _jag_. Then he recalled a couple strange specimens he had taken six and a half centuries before, jag that encased themselves in clumsy steel plates and mesh. It had seemed to be a course that could not proceed much further, and he had been unsurprised when he failed to encounter this clumsy armor on his few hunts since then. But, he thought, the jag might have revived the technology. They might, furthermore, have developed a material that not only blocked blows, but held in the infrared glow of their bodies. He found this disconcerting, to a degree that seemed beyond reason.

He clicked his mouthparts in thought. He had spent the last millennium trying to find a means of return to the wider galaxy, for the Huntress if not for himself. The ship was well beyond repair, but he still had use of a life pod and an emergency transmitter. A century ago, he had finally made contact, with a ship of the separated Clans. He had no desire to join them, but he thought that joining them would be the best course for Huntress. The source had been a lone adventurer in a sublight pod, who promised to relay his message once he rendezvoused with his Clanship, in another twenty years. There was no chance of the Clanship diverting from its course, however, and it would take authorization from a colony governor for another ship to make a special trip. Between the time it took for travel, for transmissions and for bureaucratic approval, he had anticipated another 130 years before he was rescued- no great wait, for a long-lived species with use of Sleep chambers.

He had planned to awake again only when a signal arrived from the rescue ship. This interruption was particularly unwelcome. However, it was not hard to see how it might be made enjoyable. He considered three of his favorite trophies, which he kept with him in the control room. There was his most recent trophy, who had laid about him with volleys of lead even as he fell. There was the armored jag, still in his helmet, who had slain beside him until they only had each other left to slay. Then there was the swarthy old chief, whom he had slain in his own tent. It had been curiosity more than anything else which had led him to seek out this chief who would not fight beside his young warriors, curiosity in particular whether the natives might finally be degenerating beneath _jag_hood. He had felt gratitude when the chief, though seemingly loath to seek battle, had freely joined it when it came to him. He was convinced that he had redeemed the chief, that the chief himself had been grateful when death in battle interrupted his life of pampered disgrace. The Hunter's one regret was that he had not slain the other chief, who had fled while his enemy stood to fight. That one was no worthy trophy, but surely worthy of death as a matter of genetic hygiene.

He turned back to the problem at hand, how to dispose of these strange intruders. He had an array of internal defenses that could have disposed of them handily, but he dismissed these almost at face value. These were jag, not Game, and the fact that they would intrude upon his ship spoke of considerable courage. They deserved better than death by unseen traps. The other obvious option was to go forth and fight them himself. But they were obviously dangerous, and he could not yet know how dangerous. In the end, it was the thought of the Huntress left to fend for herself if he perished that convinced him against taking the matter into his own hands. A third option presented itself when he saw they were going: Inward, toward the chamber where he stored his live trophies. That was it. He could release the trophies, one by one, several at a time or all at once. The intruders would almost certainly meet honorable death against Hard Game. If they managed to survive, then he would know that much more about how he might slay them himself. He poised his finger over a button as the intruders drew nearer and nearer to the central chamber.

NEXT: Battle and Death


	9. Human, all too human

**This chapter ended up different than I planned. I would especially welcome reviews and comments on the ending.**

"**Human, all too human"**

Error has turned animals into men; might truth be capable of turning man into an animal again?

Nietzsche

2 km from Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0345 April 16 2044

Zaratustra and his men rode toward Bedilovo on a drone and a captured cross-country truck. Zaratustra stood on the front of the drone's vaguely anthropomorphic weapons pod, while Martinez rode in the seat for the optional driver. Two more squires drove the truck (only they could fit in the cab), while the Flea and the Tick hung to either side and Sunflower stood on the roof. As they approached the safe zone, the Flea said, "I say, this doesn't look very safe."

The "Battle of Bredilovo" had begun as a fast and intense fight. After suffering a dozen casualties from the mortar-launched munitions, including two deaths, the mixed force of UN "peace keepers" and "private contractors" had rammed their way into the safe zone with a dinosaurian Type 59 tank. The exotroopers had disabled the tank but lost their mortar and combat drone in a fighting retreat to the church. Now, the battle had devolved into a standoff. On one side was Lupov, the other of Princip's "rookies", three squires, and the armed priest. On the other were well over a hundred men, supported by three "technicals" and the Paleozoic T34 tank. About 50 Shqiptars had also gathered, for purposes which even they did not know.

"There's no sign of the Lieutenant," Sunflower said. "In fact, half the squad is unaccounted for. They must be searching the tunnels. I say we double back and take another route to the border. Our guys can handle themselves, but if we go in there, the truck is going to be a liability."

"No," said Zaratustra. "We must go in. Lt. Princip may be in trouble, and not just from the peacekeepers and mercenaries."

The Tick spoke up: "But, Sergeant Zed… With all due respect, sir… The Lieutenant is the best. There's nothing he can't handle, and if there were, no one else is going to do any better."

"Yes, he is the best," Zaratustra said. "But he is still human, all too human."

Under Bredilovo

The interior of the space ship was clearly circular in plan, with the corridors and small chambers arrayed in concentric rings. At first, the walls were amber-colored, covered in intricate designs that might be some kind of writing. At regular intervals, there were displays, of weapons, of armor, and most often, of trophies. There were creatures that could only be extraterrestrial, such as a centaur-like reptilian creature and what looked like an insect made from crystal. There were terrestrial but extinct creatures, such as a cave lion, a saber toothed cat and a mammoth's huge tusks. There were examples of familiar terrestrial animals, almost all large predators. And there were quite a few men. Most of the specimens were bones or tanned hides. But some were preserved intact, and these were held within transparent cylinders of fluid which glowed sky blue. They were, in fact, live specimens, held in Sleep.

At intervals of about 15 decrees of the circles' arc were portals leading to the next ring. These did not line up with each other, so the finbacks had to follow what amounted to a spiral route inward. At the fourth ring, things changed. The amber walls with their odd designs suddenly gave way to a black, ribbed material. Zaratustra could have told them it was a simulation of a parasitoid nest. The trophies within were all various forms of the parasitoids.

The trophies here were more densely concentrated. Typically, there was a skull, a picture of the complete, living parasitoid, and also an image of the host. A huge hand, over a meter long, was one of the few without explanation. A robust specimen with hoof-like hands and feet and a crest split into two forms obviously came from a cow. There was a mermaid-like form shown to come from a dolphin, and a bizarre specimen with huge paws projecting almost directly from its shoulders proved to come from a giant prehistoric armadillo. They passed on to a ring with nothing but crab creatures and the crested heads of queens. Some of the crabs were significantly different in shape and size. Most notable was a form with wings; if they could have read the hunter hieroglyphs, they would have learned that this was the ectoparasitoid that implanted queen embryos.

This ring proved to be the last. The next portal led them into a central chamber 15 meters wide and ten meters high, with a domed ceiling and curved walls rather like the inside of a pumpkin. Seven lobes projected from the walls five meters into the room, and at the end of each lobe there was a spherical Sleep tank. Each held a parasitoid of great size. On their left was a "bovoid", larger than the one they had seen before; it had been incubated in an aurochs, the wild and centuries-extinct ancestors of domestic cattle; a parasitoid with wings; and a freak with two heads and a stunted third arm sticking out of its chest. On the right was a parasitoid with an exoskeleton of translucent crystal and a strikingly angular form, down to an almost rectangular head and hexagonal limbs and vertebra (this incubated in a silicon-based extraterrestrial), one that could only have been incubated in a wild pig, and a very stout individual whose crest curved forward to mimic the horn of its dwarf rhinoceros host. Directly across from them was the largest of all, a quadrupedal form two meters tall at the shoulder. It had massive jaws and protruding cheeks, and its crest was a stout, slightly curved spike. Its limbs ended in massive paws, each with four toes that ended in raised sickle claws, and its tail was tipped with a spade-shaped blade. Its host could only be a cave lion.

"There's nothing here," Princip said. "Fall back!"

"I don't think we can, lieutenant!" Zotgjakt said. The ovoid portal behind them was crisscrossed by red laser beams, made visible by the thin mist. Zotgjakt tossed a spare titanium plate into the beams. It was cut to pieces in midair. "This is a trap!"

"Inverted delta formation! Zotgjakt, center; Petrovic, apex; Pavel, right!" Even as he spoke, the men fanned out into a triangle. Petrovic remained where he was. Zotgjakt moved to the center. Princip and Pavel moved to far side; Pavel moved right, between the rhinoid and the suinoid, while Princip moved left, between the winged parasitoid and the twins.

They had scarcely assumed their positions when two tanks burst open. On Zotgjakt's left, a lens-shape piece of shell came flying off the tank with the winged creature, followed by a flood of blue fluid. The flying lens staggered him, and the fluid swept him off his feet. On his right, a split second later, the same thing happened with the tank that held the suinoid. The flier leaped out and took flight. The suinoid lunged out, and Zotgjakt rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being hit in the back with both front hooves. He emptied one tank, setting the creature ablaze before it could fully emerge from the chamber. It fell forward on knees and knuckles, slashing with its tusked, protruding chin. Its exoskeleton was already cracking from the flames, but the suinoid started to rise. Zotgjakt fired again. It let out a scream that rose in volume and pitch until audio cutouts activated in the finbacks' helmets, that ended only when its head burst. "Watch out! That blood damaged my suit's padding!" Zotgjakt warned. He loaded both his spare tanks, replaced the gas cartridge, and signaled Petrovic to come to him.

The winged creature, which had been incubated in an extinct condor called _Argentavis_, did a tight circle of the room. Pavel fired on it with a machine gun, firing two incendiary bullets with each shot, but only made relatively harmless holes in its wings. It pecked at the squire, and pulled off Princip's helmet with its claws. As it completed its circuit, it banked sharply, going into position to dive at Pavel from behind. At that moment, Zotgjakt fired, hitting it in the chest with a full 1.5 seconds of flame. The jet slammed it back, pinning it to the wall. When the napalm spray went dry, the blazing carcass slid most of the way down the curving wall before falling face-down in a heap.

Other tanks opened in rapid succession. The rhinoid's tank blew open, but the combined fire of the PTRD, the flame thrower and machine gun brought it down before it even got out of the tank. Before the noise of the shots had died down, the tanks with the twins and the crystal parasitoid opened simultanteously. The top flew off the twins' tank, allowing it/them to escape by leaping onto the wall and scurrying up. Princip fired at it with the PTRD, but missed. Zotgjakt hit the crystal parasitoid as it emerged from its tank, but the napalm only flowed harmlessly off its hide. Both darted in amongst a cluster of latticework protuberances on the ceiling (oddly like a chandelier). Pavel moved in, thinking he could get a better shot at the crystal parasitoid. That was when the front blew off the leonoid's tank behind him. The flying lens and the following liquid knocked him down and washed him almost to the portal. He only had time to stare in horror as the leonoid crossed the chamber in two bounds. His helmet bounced and rolled all the way back to the creature's tank.

Princip fired a shot after the leonoid. Even as it crushed its kill, it turned its head. Then it reared up and whirled around on its hind legs. It came at him, not in a straight line but along the room's edge, half following the wall and half climbing it. Princip reloaded the PTRD and fired, striking the creature in the right shoulder. The force flung it back, its arm hanging by a few tubes. Its tail lashed forward even as it flew back, striking Princip and knocking the gun from his hands.

The twins rushed for Princip while he was down. Zotgjakt and Petrovic moved in to help, only to be blocked by the crystal creature. Princip stopped the advancing twins with a kick to the abdomen. He used a spear gun attached to his right forearm shield to parry a thrust from one of its two tails, and then launched the spear through the left head. The transfixed head let out a final shriek and then dropped, but the right head snapped in rage, and the stubby third hand clawed into the outer padding, working its way toward his throat. He pushed back with his right forearm, and got an awkward hold on his 12-gauge side arm with his left hand. The gun came out of the holster upside down, and the twin tried to grab it with its short arm. But he was able to push it back with a sudden chop of his right arm, just long enough to turn the gun. He fired a slug directly into the roof of its mouth, and the explosive filling blasted away the back half of its head. He cut the line on the spear and shoved the twitching carcass away.

Meanwhile, Zotgjakt met the crystal parasitoid with a flurry of punches. The crystal shell spiderwebbed under his blows, and an especially hard upper cut caved in its lower jaw. Petrovic darted for Pavel's machine gun, and the parasitoid, following the instincts of any predator, turned aside from Zotgjakt and chased the squire. They collided in a ferocious grapple. The squire pulled something from the back of his equipment module and shoved it into the parasitoid's mouth. It was a freshly charged compressed air tank. It ruptured with a noise like a grenade going off, and the combatants were flung in opposite directions: Petrovic was thrown back toward Zotgjakt, while the parasitoid went tumbling through the portal. The lasers did not cut it apart in flight, but when it landed, its exoskeleton came apart in square pieces.

Princip reloaded his spear gun and then advanced on the leonoid, firing shot after shot from the slug gun. The slugs did not penetrate the creature's armor, but when they detonated, there were impressive gouts of yellow-green blood. The injured monster stood up; its right arm finally dropped off. It seemed crippled, and almost pitiful. But then, in a sudden return of its swiftness and strength, it kicked back with its right leg and knocked open the last unopened tank. The bovoid came charging out. Zotgjakt hit it with a full blast of flame, but the bovoid charged relentlessly on, straight for the Lieutenant. Princip had only a moment to devise a means to save himself. He fired his spear gun into the ceiling and hauled himself up and out of the bovoid's path. Then, as the bovoid wheeled around to seek another target, he dropped like a pile driver onto its neck. The head plowed straight into the floor even as the body momentarily kept moving. Then it tumbled end over end and lay like the blazing carcass it was.

The leonoid pounced at the exotrooper, and he swung to meet it, cutting the line just before they connected. He hit with enough force to knock it back, and tumbled and rolled in the other direction. It stood up again, eight meters tall, and came at him. In a fraction of a second, he loaded his last spear and fired it into the left side of the monster's head. There was no instant kill this time. It slashed at him with its remaining arm, and drew back its tail to strike. That was when Princip reeled in the cable and jerked it off its feet.

It fell forward, face first, and Princip stepped to the right. The cable went from the left side of the monster's head, under its chest, and past its remaining arm. Before the monster could recover, he reeled more cable in, forcing it to roll over. He circled around to its head, threading the cable under what was left of its right arm. He then reeled out a meter or so of slack, just to wrap it around the creature's neck. Finally, he drew the cable in again, running the motorized reel at full power, walking backwards and finally up the wall as he did. The net effect was to throttle it and steadily twist its head at the same time. It slashed for him with its arm, which he had hoped to tie up, but he easily remained right where it couldn't reach. It then tried to cut the cable, but by then the only cable in reach was already pressing into its own flesh. For good measure, he grabbed its crest and began twisting the head directly. At the last, he planted a foot on one of its shoulders and kicked hard. Its head whipped up and to the right as its sorely abused neck finally snapped.

Zotgjakt frantically tended to Petrovic, who lay dazed in a pool of blood and napalm. His pack had sprung at least one sizable leak, and if the napalm ignited, even an exotrooper would be cremated alive. The finback was asking questions, trying to determine if the squire had a broken back; the squire's answers were vague, if not hesitant. "All we need to do is cut you out of that rig!" Zotgjakt said. "Then we get you out of here, get you to the doctors, and you will be as good as new before you know it."

Petrovic raised his head awkwardly, as if listening was a strain. Then he slowly shook his head. A shadow fell over them. Zotgjakt looked behind to see their commander. Princip nodded grimly and drew his side arm. Zotgjakt moved away, shaking silently as the tears silently flowed underneath his helmet. Princip fired a single shot. Then, in a sudden frenzy, he emptied the rest of the clip into the structures on the ceiling, and followed that with the entire remaining load in the machine gun. He finally dropped the weapons and turned to Zotgjakt. They fell upon each other in mutual grief, embracing and pounding each other's armor at the same time.

The Hunter stared in shock. Every one of his trophies had been destroyed, at the loss of only two of these baffling warriors- and those clearly the novices. He had given no thought to the possibility of the intruders prevailing, and now that the unthinkable had come to pass, he struggled to hold back dishonorable terror. But equally shocking, and almost as unnerving, was the elder warriors' display of grief. The Hunters of Hunters were not uncaring. Their elders always did their best to teach the youngsters, and certainly felt regret when an unlearnt lesson led to a novice's death. But what the Hunter saw now was beyond their ken. The Hunters' way was for each to fight his own battles. They would not intervene to save each other. Most would rather die themselves than be "rescued". If one fell, this was accepted as the will of the Lord of Blood. But these warriors had fought to save each other. As unfathomable as it was to him, the Hunter was able to deduce that the elders would have died themselves to save their charges. He thought then of a rather repulsive figure he had seen in many jag temples, a figure naked, bound, and with a crown of thorns on its head, and it occurred to him that the chief's helmet bore something quite similar to the crown of their idol.

He suddenly understood something about these jag, the answer to a puzzle which no jagutJag had even noticed before. They did have Honor and Rules, and one of their Rules- quite possibly the greatest- was that it was Honor for the strong to die for the weak. To the Hunters of Hunters, even their heretics, this was monstrous. In their eyes, the duty of the strong was to survive and prosper, to the glory of the race. The weak, apart from helpless nestlings, could only degrade the race and themselves. A further heresy flitted through the heretic's mind, too briefly and furtively for him to articulate to himself, that perhaps the weak who were saved from early death sometimes became strong themselves. On a more concrete level, it crossed his mind that, when even the strongest would die for even the weakest, the jag might go to any lengths to defend and avenge their own. And, when he had quieted his shock and revulsion to rational levels, he still felt fear.

**A little more back story: I have 1/6 scale models of my exotroopers (made by customizing sets from Mega Bloks' discontinued Blok Bots line) that I have used for public presentations. I once had a person assume that they were NOT supposed to be human. I found this an interesting misunderstanding. To me, it's easy for me to picture them as characters, rather than automatons, but even I have trouble visualizing them apart from the armor. Here, the point has been to balance the machinery against their humanity. Without really planning to, this chapter has been a major development of this group. By the end, I felt sad for Princip and Zotgjakt, and moved by their reactions (which seemed to come almost by themselves). I would be interested to know how many readers feel the same way.**


	10. Lords of Blood

Lords of Blood

**Lords of Blood**

He who fires a shot draws blood on himself.

Albanian _Kanun_

Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0400 April 16, 2044

As Zaratustra's squad approached, a score or so of mercenaries turned their weapons toward the new arrivals. This seemed like a futile gesture, until more troops began to emerge from an M113. There were five of them, and each wore a combat exoskeleton. These were hazardous-environment combat suits, which unlike the headsmen had been designed specifically to repel weapons fire, though the plastic plates were much lighter, both in weight and protection offered, than those of the finbacks. The distinctive helmet, with its transparent, rounded faceplate, had earned users the nicknames "spacemen" or, derisively, "bubble-heads". The obvious leader took out a badge and a piece of paper. A headsman hoisted what looked like a harpoon with a boxing glove in place of the point. "We didn't come here to fight you," he said. "We are here at the request of UNCOST and the Bulgarian government to search the premises of the church. I demand that you withdraw yourself and your men at once, or you will be charged with obstructing an international court of inquiry."

Zaratustra walked up to him, and he involuntarily flinched. Then the finback took the paper, glanced at it, and tore it in half. "Thank you- I was running low on toilet paper!" He paused while his squad laughed. They joined in with derisive comments about the quality of their armor; Sunflower performed an obscene pantomime with his recoilless gun.

The enemy exotrooper said pointedly, "I am also authorized to search any outgoing shipments. What's in that truck?"

"If you want to know, then open the door and find out."

"I don't think so."

"Then I would guess you already know. And I would guess that those who told you are subjects of our investigation."

The bubblehead stepped back. "I'm only carrying out the instructions of my superiors. I am not responsible for their decisions."

"Funny. There was a time when international law' said otherwise. Now, withdraw your men, and let me get to mine."

"I will let you through," the bubblehead said boldly, "if you order your men to stand down." Zaratustra's only response was to punch him in the throat, unfortunately with his right hand. The commander staggered away with blood spurting from the hole the finback's prosthesis had made in his throat. The rest of the bubbleheads raised their weapons. The finbacks raised theirs.

"_Your move, creeps," _said the Flea.

The commander managed to make his way to an ambulance, and doctors began opening up his suit to apply bandages. The bubbleheads untensed a little. Then a peacekeeper in nominal command intervened, saying, "Let him through! Let him through!" He met Zaratustra, and started to give some conciliatory spiel, but the finback shoved him aside. He walked straight past the crowd of potential enemies. Most were "jihadskis", Muslim volunteers from outside the Balkans who had come with vague notions of stopping a new crusade, and the majority of the rest were foreign mercenaries. About a tenth were UN peacekeepers, and most had decided to perform the duty most literally, by forming a line between their nominal enemies and allies. Some of the mercenaries had joined them. Their refrain had been, "If one of the finbacks is killed, the rest will try to kill all of us." This was, indeed, something they were known to do, and it was for situations like this that it proved its effectiveness. Only the anient T34 (the best tank in the world in 1941) made even a gesture of threat, by swiveling its turret to track him. He snapped off a shot with his anti-material rifle. The shot did just enough damage to leave the turret crew temporarily blind and deaf. A murmur rose from the Shqiptar crowd.

When Zaratustra reached the churchyard, he spoke first to Lupov. "Corporal, report. Where is the lieutenant and the rest of the squad?"

Lupov hastily explained. Then the priest interjected, "I told him the secrets of the Brotherhood, and he went with three other men to see for himself. I do not know what is become of them."

Zaratustra said, "Then I am going to follow them."

"I do not think so," said the priest, quietly but firmly. "I know who you are. You are an Ophite."

"Surely you know the terms I am on with the rest of the Ophites."

"A heretic among heretics is probably more heretical still. I will not permit it while I live."

Zaratustra redirected the conversation. "Tell me about the Shiptars. Are they friendly to us? To you?"

"They consider me their host, and since I invited your commander into the church, they consider you guests. They will defend you, if necessary, as long as you are our guests, as is commanded by their _Kanun_." The _Kanuns _ were collections of quasi-religious Shqiptar traditions that had functioned as law for much of their history.

"I am one of his companions," Zaratustra said. "He is my commander and my teacher, and one of those with him, the Shqiptar, is my friend and former partner. Do you think they will be peaceful it you turn me away?"

The priest wavered. He knew the likeliest answer: They would demand that he either admit Zaratustra, or expel Princip. "They say you do not break any oath," he said finally. "Will you swear, if I let you pass, to take nothing out with you?" Zaratustra's answer was silence.

After a long, awkward silence, Zaratustra said, "I will promise this: Anything that I bring up, I will assume full responsibility for. I will not use it in this war. If anyone else should attempt to use it against the Shqiptars, or if it should become a threat to the world as a whole, I will destroy it myself. Will you accept these terms?" The priest nodded, and turned back toward the church.

The Flea, the Tick and Martinez came up behind Zaratustra. "How did you get through?" he said.

The Tick pointed to Martinez. "She was the one who did it. All she did was explain why she's with us…" His voice trailed off, but Zaratustra gave no sign of offense.

"I have secured our passage into the caves," the sergeant said. "We will not return until we have the lieutenant." He slammed his fist into his palm. His companions stared.

It was the Flea who spoke: "Uh… Sergeant Zed?" Zaratustra looked down. He had, once again, used his right fist…

In the ship

Princip and Zotgjakt crouched across the room from the blaze of Petrovic's body. "We're going to get out of here," the commander said, "and we will take Pavel with us, Petrovic too if we can."

Suddenly, above them, one of the projections in the ceiling moved. It was a tube attached to a ball and socket, and it launched balls of electric blue-white fire. The first shot hit Zotgjakt in the chest. Princip ran ahead of a volley of similar blasts. The weapon traversed to follow him, and a second activated to fire at him from the front. He leaped over the bracketing fire of the second gun and landed behind a holding tank. He came back up with the PTRD. He fired two shots in succession to knock out the first gun, while the fire of the second only battered at the tank. Behind him, Zotgjakt sat up. "Are you all right?" Princip shouted.

"Yes," Zotgjakt said. "It didn't get past the second ceramic plate. But it is definitely preferable to avoid them."

In the control room, the Hunter roared in fury. He had been directly controlling the gun just destroyed. The other had been on automatic, but now he took control of it, and activated two more. He set the other two guns to use the targeting data from the one under his control. The triple volley made short work of the tank. Where the glass did not shatter, it melted. Princip returned fire, knocking out another gun and producing enough smoke, fire and shrapnel to interfere with the sensors of the others.

"Zotgjakt! If our armor can stop these weapons, maybe it can survive the lasers after all!" Princip shouted. Without further prompting, Zotgjakt grabbed Pavel's body and tossed it through the portal. Serious damage was done, but the armor remained intact. Princip grabbed his helmet and ran for the portal. One of the guns fired after him, but only got off a couple unsteady parting shots. He tossed the rifle through a gap between the beams and then leaped through himself. He landed with his visor knocked out, his outer padding cut to pieces, both radiator fins ruptured, the hydraulic lines between his pelvis and abdomen severed, and several servos knocked out. He pulled off his outer helmed and raised the visor, which was part of his inner helmet. He regained his sight in time to see two guns drop down from the ceiling. He destroyed both with his 12-gauge.

On either side of the portal, there was an unobtrusive panel. Princip shot one of them with a slug. The panel casing was damaged, and half the lasers flickered. He tried again with the PTRD. The panel exploded, and half the lasers went dead. He had to stand up to point the rifle at the other panel. When the rest of the lasers went dead, there was a loud but very low noise, one that was felt as much as heard, that could only be an alarm. Zotgjakt lunged through, dragging Petrovic's burning corpse behind him. A door slammed shut a split second later, severing the squire's legs at the knee.

Locking pins were pulled out of the exoskeletons of the dead rookie and squire, allowing the removal of armor plating. Petrovic was finally cut free from the napalm tanks on his back. Princip's exoskeleton was in bad shape. The left calf servo was knocked out, creating a severe limp, and his right arm was nearly immobile. Even so, he dragged Petrovic's body through the inner rings.

The Hunter was once again startled. The manner in which humans handled their dead had long been a mystery to the Hunters of Hunters, and the main reason why their status as _jag_ had been frequently disputed. Among themselves, the overwhelming consensus was that Honor required one of three methods of disposing of a body: the Funeral Feasts, their oldest tradition; consumption by trophy Game; or total cremation. For the first tens of thousands of years that hunters observed humans, it was thought that the humans considered their own dead no different from any other carrion. While many humans occasionally practiced Feasting, they mostly either left the bodies where they fell, or threw them in caves, water and hand-dug holes. Their status in the Hunters' eyes only dropped when it was realized that many of them preferred to preserve the dead, even the inert flesh. To the _jagutJag_, this appeared to be calculated sacrilege.

What the Hunter saw now would force a reappraisal of the humans' nature (if the other Hunters ever heard the tale). Whatever the humans' intention for the dead, they clearly considered it a matter of Honor not to leave the carcasses to an unknown fate. He was surprised, even touched, so much so that he overrode failsafes that would have sealed the trophy hall. He had made up his mind to let these quarry escape. If he added them to his trophies, it would be on another day.

Then he saw a new warning from the airlock. He quickly realized the truth: More armored _jag_ had entered the ship!


	11. Duel

**Here's my version of a Predator ship. I came up with a fairly detailed and realistic design for a reactor, but tried not to go into that much technical detail. One thing I decided might use a little more explaining: Electromagnetic cooling pumps" are a real device, first proposed by Einstein as an alternative to chemical coolants. The principle is to circulate water using electromagnetic fields. I had the idea that Predators might simply use the warm water to create a more warm and humid environment in their ships.**

**Duel**

The passage from the airlock (and the one from another like it on the far side of the ship) led to a crescent-shaped atrium to the circular trophy hall. This was where hunter lay in wait for the armored jag. He intended not to fire upon them, as long as they did not seek him out, or try to enter other parts of the ship. He was reasonably certain there were no more or less than four intruders in the passage; they appeared to have stopped for the moment. The survivors of the first team were still laboring their way through the trophy hall.

Hunter had brought special equipment. Instead of a normal plasma caster, he had brought a triple-barreled laser cannon, originally designed for use against the crusaders' landing craft. One bolt at the weapon's lowest setting would punch a hole in a human tank (and had done so a hundred years earlier). He had also brought a mask with special sensor equipment, designed for hunting Hard Game. The sensor suite included motion detectors, noise detectors and sonar, and a passive sensor that detected Hard Game radiation emissions. He was puzzled when his visor showed a positive reading of a radiation source, similar to but definitely not matching the signatures of the hard game. He realized the truth just in time, and retreated just as a volley of 14.5mm incendiary-fragmentation rounds and 3 cm grenades commenced. Even before the volley died down, a third finback appeared at the atrium entrance and opened up with a six-barreled machine gun. He fired the laser. The finback somehow dodged, and the beam hit a power conduit. The Hunter winced as the lights in the trophy hall flickered out.

Another warrior rushed in, this one with a crown. He fired a shot that struck the Hunter in the chest. His armor was not penetrated, but the force alone was enough to break ribs. He staggered, but still managed to fire the laser and score a hit. Then the impossible happened. The warrior turned his torso so that the beam obliquely hit his left breast plate. Somehow, the armor either stopped the beam, or deflected it around his own body. The Hunter roared and beat a retreat, and the warrior pursued.

"Find the lieutenant and any surviving companions!" Zed ordered as he ran. "Maintain a secure line of retreat! Do NOT follow me!"

Martinez and the Tick turned toward the trophy hall. The Flea hesitated. His commander followed the transparent shape to the center of the atrium, then up a ramp and through a portal. He was just about to follow his commander, when he saw the flash of a laser barricade activating.

Immediately beyond the atrium was the engineering section, which centered on a shaft 5 meters wide and about 40 meters deep. The mist proved to come from columns on the edge of the shaft. Zaratustra gave it a wide berth; it seemed like a perfect spot for an ambush, for the entire shaft shone brightly in infrared. But his scope showed the quarry moving away. He guessed (correctly) that the shaft held important equipment, and that the alien was trying to shift the battle to a less sensitive part of the ship.

The trophy hall, dim to human eyes to begin with, was completely dark. In the darkness, there were terrifying sounds of all the Hunter's live trophies awaking at once, to confusion and terror and vengeful anger. Screams and roars of all kinds erupted as they began to encounter each other. Martinez lit the way for the Flea and the Tick with a spotlight. The first creature they saw in the darkness was obviously extraterrestrial. All they saw of it before it darted from sight was a blue, ovoid head with three shimmering red eyes. Next, they encountered what could only be a dwarf elephant. A "dwarf" only in relative terms, and maddened with terror, the boar-sized creature slammed Martinez aside and gave the Flea a moderate trampling before disappearing. Behind it came a sabertooth predator (not a cat), which paused from the chase to sample the fallen exotrooper. The Tick dispatched it before it could do any damage.

Zotgjakt and Princip heard the shots and started shouting. They were two rings in. The skirmishers and squires quickly ran to them to assist. Martinez replaced Princip's broken calf servo, and took Pavel's body. Princip then took Petrovic's remains from Zotgjakt. The Flea and the Tick led the way back, while Zotgjakt held the rear. Behind them, there was a rumble of bestial feet. Zotgjakt fired a blast of flame, but the scaly centauroid alien came straight through, ablaze and screaming in pain, but still coming fast. He kicked with enough force to break one of the creature's legs, and stepped back to avoid being knocked down and pinned as it fell. He then crushed the creature's skull before it could try to rise.

As he ran to catch up to the others, he was narrowly missed by two bodies that crashed through the wall. One was a huge bear; the other was a parasitoid. The former had crushed the latter, only to be killed by its corrosive blood. He ran faster still, while the halls rang with the clicking footsteps of parasitoids close behind.

Zaratustra chased Hunter for over one hundred meters, through deserted quarters, past cages of strange livestock and into training rooms that simulated alien deserts, fields and jungles. By the end, he was quite certain the alien was trying to lead him to a particular place, rather than make its own escape. This did not worry him greatly, for he was equally sure that, if laying an ambush were its goal, it could have done so many times over already.

It was unmistakably the end of the line when a portal led into a room that could only be the bridge. Half of the chamber had as wall and ceiling an enormous, transparent canopy. At the base of the canopy was a semicircle of control panels, instruments and screens with star charts and landscapes of Earth and elsewhere. There were chairs, or at any rate hooded, polyhedral assemblies that looked more like chairs than anything else, at regular intervals. Zaratustra started to walk in with rifle raised. Just before he could step over the threshold, a laser barrier activated and cut his rifle in two.

"_Come in," _said an alien voice, deep and rattling like a revving motor. The central chair swiveled around. Hunter was seated in it, of course. He pointed the laser cannon at the exotrooper, but set it aside as soon as Zaratustra stepped through the door. He waved a hand and said, _"Look."_

Zaratustra turned sideways, to look without turning his back to the Hunter. The near side of the room was lined with trophies, the most prized kills of the entire clan. There were a dozen heads of parasitoid drones, which represented cumulative scores of a hundred or more by individual hunters, and five frilled Breeder skulls. There were trophies of dozens of Earth beasts, including antlers 3 meters in span, elephantine tusks 7 meters long, and many heads giant lions and sabertoothed cats, which young Hunters had taken by hand as a favorite right of passage, in the days before they found the Hard Game. Then there were trophies of humans, skulls and embalmed heads. Zaratustra's gaze lingered particularly on a preserved head that still wore a World War 2 German army helmet. And, at either edge of the wall, there were skulls of the Hunter's own kind, the most revered elders and heroes of each family of the clan.

"Impressive," Zaratustra said, looking back to the Hunter. The Hunter stood up, removed his mask, and flared his mandibles with a stuttering growl: the challenge of a Hunter toward an equal. He pulled a rod from his belt that telescoped into a double-headed harpoon. Zaratustra returned the gesture by removing his outer helmet, then his inner helmet and gas mask, and finally pulling down a kind of hood that covered his face and scalp. "I understand you," he said as he turned to the Hunter. "But unfortunately, I am not like you. Sorry." Even as he spoke, he drew his sidearm and fired an explosive slug into the Hunter's face.

Huntress looked down into the reactor shaft.

Soon, she would be flying back to the stars, with or perhaps without her adoptive sire, ultimately to her first meeting with others of her race in 150 subjective years. But first, she had one task to perform: For both the safety of the native _jag_, and to keep them from making any sudden advances inconvenient to the _jagutJag_, the primary reactor was to be shut down. Then it would be possible to blow the abandoned Clanship without also depopulating a significant area of the Home Hunting Ground.

The primary reactor was 20 meters below, suspended in the shaft between four columns that held the cooling equipment. It was a sphere 6 meters wide, bearing more than a casual resemblance to the native _jags'_ naval mines. She stared at it apprehensively. Even trained Hunter crewmen knew no more about their own ships than the conscripted peasants-turned-seamen of early 1900s Russia. Huntress lacked even that amount of training. She had only the painfully detailed instructions Hunter had made her memorize. She had to calm herself before looking at the control panel.

She was aware of the steady sounds of battle in the atrium. Just then, the sounds began drawing nearer. Over the roar of guns and screams of dying Game, she heard the angry shouts of jag on the deck just below her:

"Go ahead, get yourselves out of here! We'll draw them away!' Jos, the next time you volunteer, at least leave the we' out of it!"

"Well, I didn't force you to stay here! Besides, we both know neither of us is leaving without Zed. If you want to whine, why don't you try it when he gets back!"

The two skirmishers came into view, running to the edge of the pit before turning to fire. Huntress flinched, though she wore a stealth suit. She flinched again, for a different reason, when the Flea's gatling kicked sideways to put a dozen or so rounds in one of the columns. The mist exuding from the column became a thick plume of steam. A gauge on Huntress's panel showed a drop in coolant levels, which drew nearer and nearer to the minimum amount necessary to dowse the reactor.

The parasitoids were now in view too, a stream of bodies that piled up before the native warriors. Pools of Game blood melted the floor under the fallen, and sprays and spatters of the stuff ate away at the cooling columns, the power conduits and even the reactor housing. The warriors circled the pit in a further retreat. An errant grenade hit the already-ruptured column. There was an explosion and a shower of electric sparks as the electromagnetic heat pumps failed entirely. A loud but deep alarm, felt as much as heard by human senses, wailed up and down the shaft. A flashing red warning informed Huntress that shutdown was no longer possible. With immediate action, she had a 70 chance of preventing a meltdown… 65... 60...

The ranks of the parasitoids were finally dwindling, but a dozen made a final rush at the warriors. Weapons fire and spattering acid knocked out another column. One of the creatures got close enough to grab the Tick with its remaining arm, and hit him with a spray of acid from the stump of the other. The Flea kicked it off his partner, and it broke through the railing and tumbled down the shaft. No more came behind it, but it was not the last. A final parasitoid, perhaps smarter than the others, had doubled back, and as the finbacks relaxed in visible relief, it leaped at them from across the shaft. The Tick instinctively blasted it. It was blown apart in mid air, and a shower of chitin, innards and more diffused gore fell right onto the reactor housing.

Flames, smoke, sparks and a sizable explosion rose from the sphere. Bolts of electricity shot up the shaft. Huntress had hunkered down to begin an emergency procedure that might limit the inevitable explosion to the ship itself. Before she could work out what exactly she was supposed to do, one of the bolts struck her control panel. The controls exploded, and she was pitched over the rail to the deck below, where she lay unconscious and half-visible. The Flea and the Tick looked over their shoulders at her, down at the sphere, where flames and occasional secondary explosions continued to erupt, and finally at each other. It was the Flea who spoke: "There's no way this can be good."


	12. Choosing paths

**This was meant to be the last chapter of the first of two parts of this story, but I decided to put another break in. The conclusion shoul be up in a day or two.**

**Choosing Paths**

Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0430 April 16, 2044

The ship

Zaratustra was turning to leave the bridge of the Hunter clanship when alarms began to sound. He looked over his shoulder with mere curiosity, and might well have continued out the door. But then he stopped and tilted his head, as if listening to a voice none but him could here. Stiffly, quite possibly unwillingly, he turned and walked to the console, his right arm extended, and his hand clenched into a fist except for his immobile prosthetic third finger. His fist wavered over the console for a moment, very much like the planchette of a ouija board in motion. Then his ever-outthrust finger pushed a button, wavered, and a moment later pushed another.

In the reactor shaft, emergency overload procedures began. The water tanks emptied into the shaft in a fearsome waterfall. At about the same time, huge quantities of red dust fell into the shaft. The dust (actually slightly magnetic) clumped around the reactor housing, and the water plus the heat of the reactor turned it into something like ceramic. Little of this could be seen, as huge quantities of steam blew back up the shaft. When the haze cleared, the Flea and the Tick looked down to see the reactor housing newly encased in red ceramic. Patches of ceramic glowed, and then started to smoke. "Zed or no, we have to get out of here!" said the Tick.

"Okay, but I think we should take that with us." The Flea gestured at the stunned Huntress.

"All right! But you carry it."

"Actually, I think this might be female. Think the bio boys would let us some experimenting of our own?"

"Just shut up and run!"

The surface

The Battle of Bredilovo had resumed soon after Zaratustra entered the church. The peacekeepers who had interposed themselves between the mercs and the finbacks almost immediately retreated. Some, almost certainly the active collaborators with the slavers, stood their ground and fought. Their main weapons were small-caliber, medium-velocity carbines, whose rounds were thoroughly ineffectual against the exotroopers' armor. However, the bullets tended to shatter against the plates with a loud noise and a shower of sparks, and sort, well-aimed volleys were quite effective in blinding or distracting them. A smaller number of peacekeepers joined the finbacks. The rest of the opposing force was either jihadskis or mercenaries; after a mass of desertions, there were about 2 of the former for every one of the latter. The jihadskis did little except create a steady stream of virtually random small arms fire, and the exotroopers mostly shot around them. The mercenaries, the greatest threat, took calculated potshots from the midst of the jihadskis.

The exotroopers in the church managed to hold their ground against this mob. The mortar crew broke open their last shell and hurled the anti-personnel submunitions by hand. A mercenary with a high-powered 9.66 mm rifle finally killed a squire, at which point the more knowledgeable and/or cowardly began to run away. The tactical wisdom of their withdrawal was demonstrated within moments. The exotroopers abruptly stopped shooting short bursts at the most dangerous targets, and instead laid down continuous, indiscriminate fire. More than half the enemy's casualties were inflicted in ten seconds.

With so many of the troops dead or retreating, the remaining vehicles, including the T34, moved in. The T34's cannon stunned Lupov with a near-miss. Before the tank could dispatch him, it was destroyed by a 57 mm shell from behind. Sunflower had taken the drone and one squire around the side road to the church (the main road was very effectively blockaded by the wreck of a Type 59 tank) to come directly behind the enemy force. The mercenaries and jihadskis tried to retreat into the housing for the refugees, while the hostile peacekeepers were cut down where they stood. It was now that the Shqiptars took action. A few of them opened fire, especially on the mercenaries. Most took less drastic actions, like throwing debris at would-be intruders, shouting their locations to the finbacks, or physically shoving them back into the street.

While the finbacks were occupied with the main force, the UN exotroopers and a squad of mercenaries moved to seize the trailer, which held the captive queen. Heavy machine gun fire cut down a bubblehead and half the mercenaries, while a grenade launcher harried an attempt to find cover. A bubblehead brought a selective-fire 20 mm rifle to bear, and fired a poorly controlled volley. A single hit knocked the squire with the grenade launcher off his feet. The shooter nearly fell over himself; the lighter, theoretically superior "bubblehead" exoskeleton lacked the sheer mass that allowed the finbacks to handle such heavy weapons. The other bubbleheads and the mercenaries fanned out and rushed the truck. Bursts of carbine fire from multiple angles effectively blinded the machine gunner, who still managed to gun down another bubblehead and two mercs before being tackled by the bubbleheads. While they subdued the machine gunner, the three surviving mercs surrounded the downed squire. Without further provocation, or even debate among themselves, they emptied their weapons into the fallen opponent. It was widely said that no finback could be taken alive, but any truth in the saying did not come only from the finbacks themselves.

The bubblehead captain (with a fresh bandage on his neck from his encounter with Zaratustra) shouted, "_Victoire!_ The target is secure!" As he spoke, a bony tail emerged from between the truck and trailer. Then, in a motion that seemed instantaneous, the captain's abdomen was run through. He was lifted screaming into the gap, and fell silent when a proboscis smashed through his plexiglass visor.

The other UN exotroopers fled as the creature emerged. It was badly wounded, with one side of its head sheared away. The damage had been done by an HEI-FRAG round from Zaratustra's anti-materiel rifle. He had left it for dead while destroying or capturing the rest of its hive. But it had survived, with approximately two-thirds of its brain mass intact, and managed to make its way to its queen. Now, without further heed to the humans, it staggered toward the door of the truck. The squire recovered his machine gun and took aim, but did not fire. Between his own bullets and its corrosive blood, it was quite likely that shooting it would break open the trailer anyway. Then a short burst sounded from a relatively small rifle struck the creature in the head. The bullets did not penetrate where they struck its unbroken shell, but they compounded the damage when they struck the gaping rent that already was in its skull. The shooter was the priest. He pointed to the trailer and began shouting. Then his attention was diverted by the return of the first finbacks.

Princip came out first, still carrying Petrovic's body. Martinez was right behind, bearing Pavel's body. Zotgjakt came last. The priest ran to Princip in a fury, shouting, "What have your men brought?!"

Princip looked to the trailer and shook his head. "I honestly don't know."

"Well, I know much, and can guess the rest. It is…"

The priest was cut off by Sunflower. "Sir, a mixed force of peacekeepers, contractors and irregulars has entered the safe zone, but is contained and will be neutralized shortly," he said. There was a chorus of shouts and screams, followed immediately by a couple volleys of machine gun and auto cannon fire. "But there is bad news to report. There are incoming armored vehicles and aircraft, on both sides of the border, within 18 km. To the south, at least 30 tanks and APCs, plus an unknown number of technicals. At least four of the tanks are T110s, which means Shqipterian Volunteers as well as the Kosovar army and irregulars. From the east, 10 tanks and 4 attack helicopters. No telling which will arrive first."

"You must leave here at once," said the priest. "I cannot urge strongly enough that you destroy that trailer and its contents."

"Sgt. Zed insisted he has orders to bring it back," Sunflower countered. "And, frankly, I've seen what's in there, and even the RCL couldn't destroy it without risk to ourselves."

Princip looked to the priest. "I'm sure the incoming forces are here for it, as much as for us. Whose hands would you rather see it in?"

"I would sooner have cast myself into the sea than live to see men set eyes on this evil thing. But, if I must choose… The peacekeepers would have sold it to some eastern gangster, who would have sold it to either the Russians or the Chechens. The Bulgars would give it to the EU, and the Shqiptars would trade it to the Americans or the Arabs. You, on the other hand, would do nothing more or less than place it in the custody of men who are devil worshippers. On the whole, I should prefer you, as then at least it will remain in the same hands."

There was a muffled booming from the south, the firing of mortars. Chutable submunitions and rocket-assisted anti-tank shells sailed past the village, to land in the midst of the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians returned fire with long-range missiles. The Shqiptars evidently got the better of the exchange, or else had the advantage to begin with, as their tanks were the first to approach the safe zone. There were two T110s and two T72s, accompanied by a Bradley APC and a strange technical with oversized wheels and shocks and two recoilless guns mounted directly in the hull. "Get ready with anti-tank munitions, but don't fire unless they pass the boundary of the safe zone," Princip said. As he spoke, two Bulgarian helicopters shot over the village, straight for the Shqiptar tanks.

The T110, a tank that had been in production for about two decades, was distinctive for its tall tracks, which gave it better cross-country performance but presented a larger profile to the enemy. This figured against them now, as the first of the helicopters' missiles slammed into the skirts of one of them, gutting it with a shaped charge. The second tank was able to deploy counter-measure grenades in time, and knocked out another missile. The T72s returned fire with guided missiles launched from their 125 mm main guns. The helicopters deployed their own countermeasures, and both missiles missed; then a third missile from the helicopters destroyed a T72. One of the helicopters swept forward for a low-altitude attack. The pilots either did not see or disregarded the technical, which had skidded to a halt on the far side of a small hill. It adjusted its shocks, elevating its guns by angling the entire hull, and fired one of its guns. The fiery backblast rolled out of the rear of the vehicle and down the hill, while 10,000 incendiary flechettes sailed out the muzzle. Most of them hit the helicopter. The sheer force of the myriads of impacts was enough to pitch the helicopter into the ground.

The technical drove down the hill in reverse, just fast and soon enough to dodge a vengeful volley from the remaining helicopter. Rather than pursue, the helicopter veered right to attack the remaining tanks. Its speed was too great and the range too short to use its remaining missiles; the battle became a duel of automatic cannon. The T72 exploded; its turret flew more than ten meters into the air, at the top of a column of smoke and flame. There was a second explosion a second later, but the smoke concealed which combatant had perished. Then the T110 came roaring out of the haze, headed straight for the gate to the safe zone. Sunflower marched to the gate, an over-caliber anti-tank missile attached to the muzzle of his recoilless gun. The tank passed the thousand-meter mark, then 500; the minimum range for Sunflower's missile was 50 m. At one hundred meters from the gate, the tank hit the brakes. It skidded and finally fishtailed before coming to a stop, 51 meters from the gate. The frame that surrounded Sunflower's upper torso hid a sagging of his shoulders in relief. He turned, trying to look pleased but unsurprised, only to jerk visibly when he saw what was behind him. The priest and a dozen Shqiptars had linked arms across the road behind him.

There were long moments of stunned silence. Then more commotion erupted. The Flea and the Tick had emerged from the church, running as fast as they could. "Gentlemen and ladies!" the Tick shouted. "It would be in all of our best interests to run like hell!"

NEXT: The finbacks escape


	13. Omega Aleph

Omega Aleph

**Omega Aleph**

Kosovo disputed zone: 0345 April 16, 2044

In a secret facility called Omega-Aleph, two of the chiefs of Serbia's "bio-deterrence" program conferred with a third by a televideo linkup. One of the two present was an enormous man, 2.1 m tall and almost as great in circumference. His name is Gen. Rausch, and he is the military chief of the program. He looked more like a Teuton than a Slav. He also looked as though he had once been built by an American football linebacker, but subsequently ate himself into the shape of a sumo wrestler. (His exact weight was the subject of a sizable betting pool among his subordinates.) The other was obviously a Slav, but otherwise quite nondescript. His name is Dr. Frankepanic, and he is in charge of operational deployment of bioagents. The man on the view screen was a short, thin, almost effeminate man, with light skin but with a shade of color and set of facial features that suggested a possible African heritage. His name is Dr. Arnaux Chablan, but he prefers to be called Dr. Nibeaux, and he is chief of bioagent development. He is also High Perfect and _de facto_ leader of the main branch of the Aryan Ophites, and Rausch and Frankepanic are his immediate subordinates in the "church".

"The latest reports show that the hercegs are in Bredilovo, and facing imminent attack from Bulgarian and Kosovar forces. No suitable relief force is available to extract them," said Rausch. "Our best option is _scorched earth_: Deploy one of our tactical nuclear devices against Bredilovo. We can strike with sufficient force to eliminate all megafauna in Bredilovo and its environs, but with sufficient precision to limit collateral damage to a radius of 600 m."

"You fool!" Nibeaux hissed. He had a Creole accent, and a lisp that became pronounced under stress. "The lifeforms are irreplaceable. Preserving them is even more important than securing them. If we cannot get them now, we may still retrieve them later. Besides, in case you forgot you are supposed to be in charge of military affairs, the rest of the world would regard it as not only an unnecessary nuclear escalation, but an unprovoked attack on a neutral nation. I say take our losses now, and return another day- and so do our sponsors."

"So how would one go about that?" Rausch countered. "Wait for the Bulgars and Shqiptars to fight to the death on the dead bodies of our own men, let the winner loot whatever is not destroyed outright, and then go in to see if anything is left to be found?"

"There is an alternative," Frankepanic said. He spoke with an accent and dialect recognizable to trained ears as that of Hercegovina, a defunct state literally split between Serbs and Croatians in the 1990s. "We have one asset, not currently committed, that can repel both the Bulgars and the Serbs. One under our own direct control."

Rausch scowled, and then grudgingly nodded. "All right. I authorize a sally toward Bredilovo. But it will stop where I say, and it is not to approach the finbacks if they are under direct fire. If it comes to that, they must fight their way to us, not vice versa."

Bredilovo, Bulgaria: 0445 April 16, 2044

The Surface

The Shqiptar tanks had backed up to the other side of a turnoff leading to the camp, while two Bulgarian helicopters surveilled discretely in the distance. Princip's devastated squad drove out on a technical, together with the dead. The squires drove, while the finbacks stood vigil over the dead on the flatbed. A Shqiptar chief spoke briefly to Zotgjakt: "We do not expect gratitude. But remember the _kanun _of hospitality, the next time the shoe is on the other foot!" Zotgjakt nodded solemnly. The truck drove up to the turnoff, then stopped to await the rest.

Two more trucks peeled out, one technical and one UN supply truck, crowded with Shqiptar women and children. They turned left, toward the main Shqiptar force. The refrigerator truck went next, once again with Sunflower and two squires hanging onto the sides. Martinez was driving. The squatter drove out last, with the Flea and the Tick aboard. Together, the convoy headed northwest. "I've received instructions for our rendezvous point, straight from General Rausch," Martinez said.

"We're being followed," said the Tick. In a rear-view scope, he could catch occasional glimpses of the big-wheeled technical, and plainly see the Bulgarian technicals.

"Of course we are," said Princip.

In Bredilovo, the evacuation proceeded quickly, under the supervision of the priest. The surviving peacekeepers loaded the last few dozen refugees onto UN trucks. The priest ordered his followers to go with them. He watched until the trucks drove out of sight, then walked back to the church. The first rays of the sunrise shone through the windows behind the altar. He walked to the altar and knelt. There was no doubt in his mind that he would die soon. He suspected that most, if not all, of the evacuees would still be killed. Even so, he felt a lightness of heart. It was, in no small part, the weight of eighteen centuries lifted from his shoulders. For almost two millennia, the Brotherhood had guarded the caves, and guarded the world in the process, and for more than half his life, he had accepted the burden. Now, whatever else came to pass, their duty would be fulfilled. The caves and the evil within them would be destroyed. The Brotherhood would not have stood watch in vain. Now, he could rest.

The ship

2 kilometers away and over a hundred meters under ground, the ship remained in crisis. In the reactor shaft, streams of cryogenic fluid (normally used in the Sleep chambers) sprayed the primary reactor. One of the streams thinned and sputtered out, and the others followed one by one. In the end, the reactor housing continued to shine with a dull, angry light. The light began to grow brighter.

Zaratustra's finger seemed to move of its own accord to another button. There was a deep rumble and a trembling throughout the ship as the engines powered up for the first time in 25 centuries. His finger wavered a bit longer than before, but then pushed three buttons in quick succession. Strange figures appeared on one of the screens. They changed, some faster than others, and then began to disappear. The finger moved slowly but surely toward one last button. An inhuman claw got there first

A surge of power flowed out of the secondary reactor, into a toroid secondary reactor (actually the immediate source of the ship's power, but dependent on input from the primary reactor), and finally into the engines, which fired at at least three times what the designers had declared maximum power. When they ignited, streams of plasma roared through the caves for kilometers in every direction. Water became steam. Limestone fused into marble, and then shattered to dust. Spores that had remained safely hidden for centuries or millennia exploded into vapor in an instant. Here and there, a hibernating drone screamed in its sleep as it burned to dust. Where the plasma stopped, hypervelocity streams of steam, dust and superheated air raced onward. One such stream burst through the floor of the Bredilovo church, with enough force to shatter the great window and fling the priest out into the field. He was found alive by the first UNCOST decontamination crew to come through. He could say only, "My Lord… bade me stay."

The flood of plasma only stopped when the engines exploded. The most immediate effect on the surface was the collapse of the former lake floor. Significant radiation was released, but only over a radius of a kilometer or so. The explanation offered, if not always wholly believed, by official investigators was that unidentified extremists, probably associated with Envers, had assembled a nuclear device that detonated accidentally. The governments of all four nations involved in the war absolved themselves and each other of responsibility.

The explosion reduced the ship to a mass of shapeless slag and twisted scrap. Ironically, the only section to survive in recognizable form was the reactor shaft. Between the emergency cooling and the massive diversion of power to the engines, the primary reactor had lost too much of its energy to explode. If anyone had been able to look deep enough, they would have seen the spherical housing, glowing like a murderous ember. If anyone had been looking at the moment of the explosion, they might have seen a glowing shape rise into the sky, and then inexplicably disappear.

Disputed zone, Kosovo: 0500 April 16, 2044

The escaping finbacks saw the explosion as a flash just short of the horizon. "I guess Sgt. Zed is gone, then," the Flea said. His voice suggested incredulity as well as sadness.

"I would guess the guano just hit the windshield," the Tick said. "Here they come."

The technical was chasing at full speed now, and the Bulgarian copter had abandoned stealth and discretion to circle at attack speed. A mid-sized armor formation was gaining on them from behind, and more were coming from the south. And ahead… The Tick leaned forward, squinting beneath his helmet. There was a cloud of dust rising high above the hills, and whatever was making them was not even over the horizon yet. Sunflower shouted over the radio, "It's the biggest sound-motion signature I've seen since the Hrvatski mobilization! The collective mass must be equivalent to fifty heavy tanks!"

"More like a hundred," said Martinez. "That is the extraction vehicle."

"You mean there's just one?!"

The vehicle's hull reared into view significantly before its tracks, at 20 km distance. It was a slablike shape, which would have been taken for an office building if seen stationary, 28 meters tall (not counting a conning tower superstructure on the left side), 40 meters wide, and 88 meters long. It moved at a steady rate of 40 km per hour. Few could have worked out these details if they saw it on the move, however. On seeing the thing, the natural reaction of the human mind and senses was confusion, followed by self-deception, and perhaps culminating in open revolt. At first, one might doubt if it was moving at all. When this was undisputable, there was a high probability of optical illusion, with the object being perceived as smaller, closer and slower. And when such illusions broke down, as the thing advanced like a rampaging tectonic plate, incredulity might very well break down into insane panic. Such was the reaction of the pursuing forces. They opened fire, at first, but most of their fire fell short or overshot through misperception of size, speed, and range. Then there was panic, as comm channels began to flood with preposterous _over_estimates of its size. Finally, there was general retreat, all without the giant vehicle firing a shot or, for that matter, giving any sign that it was armed.

A minority attempted to give battle. A line of T110s made a stand from the cover of a ridge, laying down indirect fire with missiles and chutable submunitions launched from their 15.2 cm main guns. (In these circumstances, the T110s effectively served as self-propelled artillery rather than tanks, as intended by designers. This had inadvertently given new ammunition to the perennial factions which hold the main battle tank obsolete.) Only then did it become clear that the giant was indeed armed. A number of weapons, ranging from inconspicuous smoke dischargers to retractable missile batteries, answered the barrage. Smoke, chaff, seek-and-destroy micromissiles and electromagnetic jamming knocked out or diverted a significant amount of incoming fire; the rest either missed to begin with, or detonated more or less harmlessly. Missile launchers, spigot mortars and a full-sized 10 cm smoothbore gun returned fire on the tanks; one T110 was destroyed and several more were damaged in a matter of seconds. They fired a final volley and retreated. The technical was last to depart; it fired two smoke shells high into the air before disappearing into the hills.

The Bulgarian helicopter was not so easily intimidated. After seeming to retreat, it turned and made a single attack run, not on the giant but on the finbacks' small column. The Tick stopped the squatter, dropped the wheels sideways and spun the gun pod around in less than 5 seconds, so quickly and forcefully that the Flea was thrown off. This was not fast enough to bring the guns to bear before the helicopter entered missile range. Fortunately, the anti-aircraft batteries of the giant proved significantly faster. The helicopter, missiles and all, disintegrated in midair, hit by not one but two missiles and a redundant spray of 35 mm autocannon fire.

Details of the giant became visible as it approached. It was propelled by eight rows of eight track units each. There was little in the way of suspension in the individual track units; instead, the entire unit could rise or fall. Viewed head-on, the propulsion system looked like a pair of crawling, skeletal hands. There was an articulation of the entire hull between the third and fourth rows, dividing the vehicle into two unequal parts. On one corner of the top of the first part was a 15X20 m platform slightly higher than the rest of the roof, recognizable on close examination as a helicopter pad. When the vehicle had closed to 10 km distance, it launched a helicopter to go the rest of the way.

Rausch himself climbed down a retracting ladder from the helicopter. "Congratulations, Lt. Princip, on another successful mission," he said. The copter moved to hover over the trailer. "Now, if you and your men could provide some assistance in loading the, ah, specimen in the sling, we can load it, and get your men on the auxiliary helicopter as soon as possible."

Even by the most conservative estimates, Rausch weighed at least as much as Princip did in full armor. This did not stop Princip from picking him up and holding him over his head with one hand. "Are you saying," said the lieutenant, "that you consider that thing more important than my men?"

"O-o-of course not," stammered the general. "If any of your men are injured, th-they can board as well."

Princip pointed to the bodies. "Take them. And put them aboard yourself."

The helicopter flew back, carrying the entire trailer in a sling. It was set down on a giant elevator platform next to the landing pad. A second, smaller helicopter, which had been lifted up to the pad on the elevator from a hangar inside, took off. Rausch remained with the finbacks. "I- I am sorry for your losses," he said.

"You should be," Princip said. "You just lost five of _your_ men, including _your _best officer. They will be missed, and you should miss Pavel and the squires most of all. Had they lived, any one of them might have become the equal of the Flea, the Tick, Sunflower, the Albaniak or even me. Instead, we will have to replace them, and the only way to do that without plundering another operational squad is to 'promote' _at least _four more men from training to combat duties they are not prepared for. And when they die, they will have to be replaced with men even less prepared. So it goes with an elite force in a war of attrition."

There was a long, awkward silence that only broke when a voice spoke over the comm channel: "General, we may have an incoming airborne contact. It could be just a goblin, but it's awfully steady. It reads as 5 km distant, no more than 500 m elevation, and closing."

"`May'? It's either there or it isn't, and if it is you should be able to see it."

"That's what has us stumped. We can't get a visual confirmation."

"It's real, general," Princip said. "You must shoot it down."

The Clanship lifeboat was in fact a sizable segment of the Clanship that included the bridge. It separated when the Hunter pushed the final button. Now, it cruised on auto pilot, while the Hunter and Zaratustra faced each other in front of the controls.

The Hunter's race came from a class with no earthly counterpart, unless it was the "mammal-like reptiles" from which true mammals had evolved. Their metabolism and nervous system could match the functions of terrestrial mammals, but were on the whole most akin to a reptile's, particularly in the ability to function in spite of injury. The Hunter's race also had relatively small brains in large and very robust skulls. It was these three features that had allowed the hunter to survive. His face was hideously maimed, with a mandible severed, an eye knocked from its socket and a gory hole blown in the broad, flat top of his head. The slug had narrowly missed his brain, though the explosion had devastated one side of it.

On gaining his feet, the Hunter roared, or tried to; the sound was virtually strangled by the wounds to his mouth. Zaratustra struck him in the face with a slap that would have knocked a human unconscious at a minimum, but the Hunter barely even staggered. His arm blades shot out, and he countered with a thrust at the exotrooper's face. The blades stuck in Zaratustra's upraised forearm shield. The Hunter kicked him in the belly while they were entangled, and both staggered back. They did not notice the detonation of a surface-to-air missile meters from the ship.

Zaratustra used the respite to draw the 12- gauge, but another kick knocked the gun from his hands. He lunged toward the Hunter as he lunged at him, ducking inside its longer reach. He punched and stabbed at the alien's torso with his right fist, until his prosthetic finger snapped on the Hunter's armor. Then he lifted Hunter into the air, preparing to plant him face-first in the control panel. But Hunter, upside down, threw his arms around Zaratustra's waist and kicked against the canopy. Suddenly, both combatants were tumbling end over end, and it was Zaratustra who smashed, rump-first, through a view screen.

Zaratustra kicked himself free almost instantly, but Hunter was ready. He tripped the exotrooper and dropped to his knees on top of him, blades raised for the kill. "Wait!" Zaratustra rasped. The Hunter paused, but did not lower his blades. "There is something I would tell you, and I think you can understand at least some of what I say.

"You are used to pleasure from the kill. I think that is why you pause: You wish to enjoy killing me, but if you do it now, like this, it will give you no pleasure. Many of my kind think I enjoy killing, and for that they think me evil. But I have never found any joy in the act. It wearies me, and for the most part, it is terribly dull besides. But that does not stop me, as it might stop you, and I wonder if that would make you more or less evil.

"So pardon me, and let me go. If one of us must kill the other, let it be on another day."

One of the blades launched free of Hunter's armband, to embed itself in the floor next to Zaratustra's head. The Hunter hit a button with his fist. Just outside the bridge, a door shot open, to reveal the open hatch of an escape pod. _"Get out,"_ he snarled.

And so a truck-sized object fell from what appeared to be empty sky, to land next to his bewildered comrades. As he stepped out of the pod, which self-destructed moments later, Rausch gaped, the Flea and the Tick cheered, and Princip merely nodded, as if unsurprised. Then the helicopter landed, and they all went together to the giant vehicle designated Omega-Aleph facility.

**This went longer than I planned, but wraps up the loose ends of the preceding chapters and introduces the setting and additional characters of the remaining chapters. Nibeaux and Rausch figure in "Walking Dead", as does a site called Omega Facility. Omega Aleph is a mobile annex to Omega Facility. Also, to explain a point of confusion I have encountered in previous works involving the Aryan Ophites, Nibeaux's title is supposed to be Perfect; it is not a misspelling of "prefect". Perfect was a title used by real gnostic sects for those who had been fully instructed in their "mystery" sayings and texts.**


	14. Alpha Drone

Alpha drone

**This is the start of a second part to this storyline, and may come across as a significant change in tone. While I consider this directionlargely dictated to me by the established ways of Nibeaux and colleagues, I will give a nod to the great Dark Horse graphic novel **_**Nightmare Asylum**_** as an example of what I am going for: the monstrosity of the aliens, coupled with the inhumanity of a clinical lab environment and the terrifying determination of warped minds in pursuit of absolute power.**

**Alpha drone**

Omega Aleph, location classified: 2200 May 1, 2044

Six people stood in a circle before the bullet-proof glass observation window, an assembly of a cult called the Church of Ophid, or the Aryan Ophites. Directly in front of the glass, the small slender man who introduced himself as Dr. Nibeaux spoke:

"We know from the mysteries that there are two gods. One is Tiamat, the serpent, the true and omnipotent god, maker of the souls of men. The other is the one whom we know as Yog-Sothoth, the so-called `god' of the Jews and the so-called Christians, who made the world to ensnare the souls of true men, who created women to deceive them, and also created the false men that are _untermenschen_ to corrupt the very fleshly vessels of true men so that none should escape." The two women present, one of them named Martinez, glanced at each other.

Behind the glass was a goat with a distended belly, and clearly in great pain. It let out a pitiful bleat and collapsed. After a few more moments, the rising of its chest stopped.

"But the false god plotted in vain," spoke another, whose name was Frankepanic, "for in every age, Tiamat has appeared to true men to tell them of the truth, and the true men have told this truth to brothers, children and countrymen. Their names have been Adam; Cain; Jesus called Christ; Paul; Basilides; Marcion and Mani; Nietzsche, Rosenberg, the Fuehrer and Dreyfus!" The last name was that of the Aryan Ophites' immediate founder. One of those present, a huge, shaven-headed named Zaratustra, had killed him. Zaratustra inclined his head, but said nothing.

Nibeaux took up the message: "It is their testimony, that this world is an illusion, and its god an evil and foolish impostor. That what is born of women is flawed, and what is born of the false men destructive. That the salvation of men is not to survive and multiply, but to purify both soul and blood! Yet, it is not decreed that some should have no part in that salvation, for even the smallest spark of divine soul can apprehend truth and free itself." He spoke the last words loudly, as an all but direct rebuff to Zaratustra. Whether to admit Slavs and non-whites had been the immediate occasion of their founder's demise.

Frankepanic practically butted in: "And now, we see a new mystery: The flesh we know is born of the female, yet we have found another flesh which is not. Yet, the strange flesh is born within the flesh we know. Thus is corruption transformed into perfection!"

Behind the glass, the corpse of the goat began to shake. Then, it burst. From out of the ruined rib cage came an offwhite exoskeletoned form a meter long. "Behold perfection! Behold Tiamat!"

The newborn parasitoid rose wobbling on two spindly legs. Its arms were as yet little more than stumps. "Fascinating," Nibeaux said. "The earliest phase of its independent lifecycle has been bypassed- peramorphosis."

The larva let out a high-pitched screech. A ridge on its back suddenly split. Its white skin began to slough away, revealing a new grey shell beneath. It stepped out of the shed shell, and promptly stumbled and fell. Its shell, still soft and moist like a forming scab, began to expand. Its body grew wider and significantly longer. Its legs lengthened. Where its stumps of forelimbs had been, small but recognizable arms. It continued to shriek, but the cries softened as the expansion slowed. It lay where it was for an hour, while the shell dried and hardened. Then, with a joyful squeal, it began to feed on what remained of the goat.

May 2

An armored figure rode down on a 3X3 m elevator, one whose shaft was lined with ceramic-coated bars and perforated ballistic plastic, and double doors at both ends. The armored man opened a door at the bottom, stepped into a chamber as large as the elevator and similarly caged off, and shut the door behind him before opening a second door and stepping into the much larger chamber beyond.

The room was lit dimly, with lamps the deep reddish-orange of a dying camp fire. It was 33 m long, 25 m wide and 10 meters tall. Its walls were lined with a strange substance like resin or plastic, in shapes like the inside of a rib cage. The armored figure spoke. The elevator returned to the top, and after a few moments started back down with a second figure, armored but far more lightly, and a motorized dolly.

Zaratustra surveyed the chamber while Martinez descended. He had stripped down his armor, mainly by removing the outer titanium laminae from many of the plates of his armor. He had removed nothing from his helmet, however, not even the crown of steel bars that marked him as commander.

From one of the dimmer corners, there was a screech of challenge. He pointed a small spotlight, or what looked like a spotlight, on his forearm in the direction of the sound. There was no apparent beam, but the fluorescent figure of an adult parasitoid appeared in the dark. The lamp was ultraviolet, and like scorpions, the parasitoids let out a visible glow when exposed to it. The parasitoid let out another screech, this time in distress, either in physical pain or simply in displeasure at being caught. It had one arm and the tip of its tail missing, though a stub of a tail tip and a small hand were growing out of the truncated members. It darted for Zaratustra, but stopped a meter from him. It reared as tall as it could and snapped at him with both sets of jaws, but it could not hide its fear. Zaratustra took two long steps forward, and the parasitoid fell back. It hissed, bearing the obsidian blades of its outer jaws. Zaratustra responded with a flick of his finger to its chin. Its head jerked back, and a spatter of blood squirted from its mouth. The alien let out a sound close to a growl, and slunk back.

Martinez emerged from the elevator, pushing a dolly. On the dolly was the larva, in a cage. The one-armed parasitoid screamed again, and a much louder growl came from the far side of the chamber. Zaratustra shone the UV lamp again, and the parasitoid quieted, but stood its ground. Martinez opened the cage. The larva toddled out. It walked on all fours, though its forelimbs were still significantly longer than the hindlimbs. Its hands and feet ended in little hooves. A crest was beginning to grow from the back of its head, but it was split in the middle like the claw of a hammer.

The parasitoid picked up the infant with its one usable hand and carried it to the far end of the chamber. The area was almost entirely dark; most of the lamps there had been covered with the resin. Even so, it was not hard to make out the hulking shape of the parasitoid queen, and the dozen of so eggs around her. The other parasitoid placed the infant in the smaller of the queen's two sets of arms. She let out a low-pitched hum, and the infant responded with a shrill whistle. The drone stood between the pair and the humans. The noises continued, modulating in what might be complex messages. After fifteen minutes, the queen handed the infant back to the drone. It squealed, but willingly took hold of the drone and climbed onto its back.

"Now for the hard part," said Zaratustra. He stepped forward, disregarding loud screams from the drone, the queen and even the infant. The drone might have attacked, if it had not been carrying the infant. As it was, it fell back, continuing to stay in front of the queen. Zaratustra stopped when he reached the nearest egg, then bent to pick it up. The queen screamed again, and the drone, having set down the infant, charged. Zaratustra countered with a spray of phosphorous from his gas spike. The drone skidded to a halt so abruptly it fell on its back, then retreated before the advancing smoke- smoke that burned what it touched. A fan overhead went into high gear, drawing the smoke out through vents in the ceiling, but even so, three eggs were touched by the smoke. One hatched, releasing a crab-like ectoparasitoid that skittered for two meters before succumbing to flame. A second ruptured, spilling out the corpse of the ectoparasitoid, and the third simply blazed until its charred shell burst with a loud bang and a lazy puff of ash. The parasitoids were shrieking more loudly than ever, but seemingly cowed out of resistance. Zaratustra picked up the egg and carried it to the dolly.

He and Martinez loaded six eggs, as many as the dolly would carry. Zaratustra had Martinez go into the chamber and then onto the elevator first. He followed when the inner door was closed, and again shut the door behind him before opening the other.

Nibeaux and Frankepanic watched the scene through one of a number of cameras in the hive chamber. The camera system was already proving troublesome to maintain. Seven had been destroyed by the drone. Many more had been blocked, intentionally or unintentionally, by the resin.

"It appears that the subjects are not as intractable as has been inferred from previous encounters," Frankepanic said. "They can at least recognize superior force. I believe they may also have a notion that this is to be an exchange- new larvae in exchange for eggs. When the next set of infants are introduced, that understanding will be reinforced. It may even prove that they can be trained in Pavlovian fashion."

Nibeaux frowned. "Perhaps. But I won't authorize such an attempt without a lot more data. For now, we observe them only." He cracked a ghoulish grin. "You know, it is rather simpler working with germs. If a germ is harmful, it will show itself to be so at the first encounter, and will remain harmful every time thereafter. But with animals, even the same individual, you could encounter it 999 times without incident, but be attacked without provocation on the 1000th."

"It happens with people, too," someone said behind them. It was Zaratustra.

May 6

By the time the next two infants were introduced, the first, dubbed the caproid, had grown to the size of a small human woman. Its crest grew into an approximation of the horns of its goat host. Its head was broad, with horns curving around on either side like the frame of a lyre. Its hands had two long fingers, ending in blunt claws that doubled as hooves, and a small thumb. It performed labor, mainly handling eggs, apparently under supervision of the one-armed drone, which was dubbed "alpha drone". This time, the delivery of the infants and the loading of the eggs took on a semblance of voluntary exchange. The caproid loaded two eggs itself.

"My hypothesis is proved," Frankepanic said. "They are willing to give us their eggs, as long as they receive new infants. They are even willing to help us."

"All well and good, but I do not intend to let the hive grow beyond a dozen drones," Nibeaux said. "We will see if they are as compliant when we stop giving them infants."

May 10

The parasitoids were thriving. The two new arrivals, incubated in a baboon and a pig and thus dubbed the pongoid and suinoid, had taken on characteristics of their hosts. The pongoid was similar to the alpha drone, except for more robust jaws, heavier chest and arms long enough for it to walk on its knuckles. The suinoid had hooves and a tusked, protruding lower jaw. As the caproid seemed to be instructed by the alpha drone, so the new arrivals appeared to serve the caproid. When the next delivery of four infants arrived, the four drones loaded a dozen eggs themselves.

May 14

The latest delivery of drones proved to be a setback to the growth of the hive. The latest delivery had been of three more suinoids and a canoid, a parasitoid incubated in a dog. The canoid proved aggressive. It attacked and killed another infant, and injured the caproid. The other parasitoids stopped short of killing it, but chased it away from the eggs. It ended up roosting on the side of the elevator shaft, where it attempted to pull the bars apart.

"We should have it shot from inside the shaft before anyone else goes down," Frankepanic said.

"Not yet," Nibeaux said. It's past time we had a test of containment procedures, and this will be a perfect subject."

The canoid remained where it was while the eggs were collected. After the elevator went back up, it slunk down to the chamber. The outer door was open. It ventured in. Then the door ahead opened. The canoid stepped into the elevator.

An alarm rang through the lab. "This is a drill," Nibeaux said. "I expect nothing less than the best from all of you."

Lab workers hastily secured their specimens and sealed themselves in their work rooms. A squad of men in biohazard suits, armed with tasers and liquid nitrogen "ice blasters", rushed down the main corridor, to a lowered bulkhead near the elevator. A loud pounding came from the other side, which many if not most of the men freely assumed to be simulated. "This is `plan murderhole,'" said the leader. "The scenario is, that the creature is trapped between this bulkhead and another like it." He pointed to doors on either side. "These lead to chambers on either side of the murderhole. Three of us go in, the other four seal the doors behind us, fire ice blasters through slits in the walls, then go in to the murderhole through doors on the other side, use our tasers a little, and carry it out in a net."

Seconds later, the screams started. A few seconds after that, the screams stopped. Zaratustra rushed down the corridor, just ahead of another slamming bulkhead, and just as a new round of screams began. He drew his slug gun, and brought it to bear on a fractured wall of one-way glass. He fired three shots from a clip of flechette shells, sending sixty steel arrows into the room, and then brought the gas spike to bear. Before he could fire, the parasitoid swung down from the ceiling and hit him in the head with a thrusting tail, hard enough to knock his helmet through a wall of glass on the other side of the corridor. (Fortunately, the workers there had remembered to lower a barricade behind the glass.) Zaratustra toppled, dropping his gun, and the wraith pounced on top of him.

On the other side of a glass wall, a terrified group of researchers listened and watched as terrific impacts shook the screen again and again. The last and most terrible impact bowed the barricade out. A thin trickle of fluid seeped through, slowly eating away at the metal.

And, on the other side of the murderhole, the alpha drone heard the death screams of the renegade, and retreated back down the elevator shaft.


	15. K factor

**K factor**

May 14

Twenty minutes later, Nibeaux shook his head as he surveyed the carnage. "Unbelievable. Pitiful. Four-fold failure. First the team failed to subdue the subject. Second, they allowed it to escape the murderhole. Third, it was able to break into an improperly sealed lab! Do you know how much the equipment in there was worth?"

"Perhaps you should not have told them it was a drill," Zaratustra said.

"You know better than that, Zaratustra," Nibeaux said. "People who do badly in drills always do even worse in combatant. And, as a commander, I prefer to have men who fear me at least as much as the enemy… Then, fourthly, we have this! Martinez, is there anything that can be done for Obil?"

His assistant was examining an NBR scan of a man's rib cage. An endoparasitoid throbbed next to his heart. "Well, it's physically possible to remove the embryo," she said. "But we couldn't do it here, and any qualified individual with the necessary security clearance will be tied up with other work. Plus, it would take some time to work out the details of the procedure, and he doesn't have it."

"Just as well; we hardly have need of lab assistants who would unseal a room without checking for unsecured specimens. Put him under quarantine. Ah, and see if he remembers what happened to him. If not, there is little point in enlightening him."

"You are wrong," Zaratustra said abruptly. Nibeaux stared at him, looking more incredulous than angry. "About fear," the exotrooper continued. "When a commander's men fear him more than the enemy, they will prefer to see the enemy win. Consider Stalin, how many of his man deserted or actually helper the Germans."

"But, Stalin won," Nibeaux countered. Zaratustra said nothing, though there was a muffled sound under his mask that might have been a sigh or angry muttering. Nibeaux went on the offensive: "Now, lets talk about the canoid. I ordered you to do everything possible to take it alive. Did you?"

"Yes. Sir. I nearly had it subdued. Then, unfortunately, the wall got in the way."

May 26

The hive was now at capacity, and fully functional. There were eight suinoids, who did most of the manual labor. The eldest of them, dubbed the Boar, had grown larger when the others arrived and assumed the role of leader. The rest had assumed roles taking care of the queen and the eggs. The pongoid loaded the eggs. The caproid handled the newly laid eggs, either examining them or cleaning them for reasons not readily apparent. The alpha drone tended to the queen, feeding her and grooming her, with assistance from the other humanoid incubated in the unfortunate Obilic. The alpha drone had also had a growth spurt at the arrival of another human-incubated infant, and its missing limb had continued to regenerate. Its new hand was fully formed, though still small, and was attached to a recognizable wrist. There had apparently been an error in the regeneration process. Where its original hands had six fingers, including two thumbs on either side, the new hand had a seventh finger, a stunted thing growing out of the knuckle of its fifth finger and splayed the other fingers unnaturally to either side.

Today was the first collection made without leaving an infant in return. To everyone's relief, there was no new resistance. The parasitoids loaded the eggs themselves as compliantly as ever. Frankepanic noted a new and quite different problem. "There have always been a dozen eggs at any given time," he said. "Now there are only nine. The queen's egg-laying is dropping off. We could be witnessing a response to overcrowding. In that case, the twelve drone target number exceeded the K factor for this species in such a small space." "K" was used by ecologists for the maximum number of individuals in a sustainable population.

"Yes; rather odd, when you think about it," Nibeaux said. "They certainly have not been short of food." That was true in more ways than one. Extensive research had shown them to be omnivores in the most literal sense of the word. They would eat any form of meat, living, dead or rotting, and plant matter when nothing else was available, as well as more exotic fare like alcohols, plastics and other petroleum products, many minerals, iron filings and broken glass.

"Do you think we should put in more infants?" said Frankepanic.

"Oh, yes, I intend to put more in," Nibeaux said. "In fact, I think we should set a new target: say, two dozen."

May 30

More setbacks had occurred. On the 28th, two suinoids fought to the death, and the winner attacked the Boar. The Boar killed its attacker in self-defense, but then attacked and killed another suinoid without provocation. Zaratustra and Martinez went in very warily, with four infants as replacements for the dead drones. A suinoid attacked Zaratustra, and he killed it matter-of-factly. Fortunately, there was no general revolt in retaliation. Five eggs were collected, all there were present.

June 15

Forty-eight drones huddled in the hive chamber. They lay in piles on the floor, clung to the ceiling, and even hung like bats from the ceiling. Fighting had long since died down. There was now little space to fight in, or to fight over. Newer arrivals were stunted and (comparatively) weak. Some of them were immobile, though apparently alive, perhaps in a kind of hibernation. No new eggs had been seen in a week. But Nibeaux was convinced something had changed. "Watch the caproid," he said. "It keeps pacing in front of the queen, and it keeps stopping there. Right where the cameras can't see."

"Why would they be protecting their eggs now?" Zaratustra said. "Surely they are not still trying to multiply."

"I believe that they are, after a fashion," said Nibeaux. "The queens have always been a puzzle, and I have divided the first full solution.

"Once it was learned that the queens existed, all subsequent efforts to understand their reproduction used the social insects- ants, termites and bees- as their model. That was a mistake. I am convinced the best model is the aphids. Aphids are not normally thought of as social insects, and indeed they fit that description very poorly. They would be better called gregarious: They live together in great numbers, but they do not work together, not to build nests, gather food, or care for young. Even mutual self-defense is only known in a few species…"

"They are not unlike us," said Zaratustra.

"There is one thing the aphids have in common with true social insects: They have queens. The aphid queen, however, is not necessary for them to breed. Quite the contrary: Drone aphids reproduce parthenogenetically, by gestating genetically identical copies of themselves in their own bodies. Even an aphid fetus will have a clone already growing inside of it. The queens come in only when the entire population is threatened, for example at the approach of winter. The aphids sense the approaching threat, and then they switch to sexual reproduction through eggs. The eggs can survive, even if every last one of the aphids dies, and when conditions are again sufficient for aphids to survive, the eggs hatch, and out come the queens. The queens scatter, settle where suitable, and then began producing new drones.

"As for the parasitoids, we now know that their `drones' reproduce, just as aphid drones do. The queen functions not as the sole breeder, but as regulator of their reproduction. In all likelihood, the queen releases pheromones that suppress the reproduction of drones around it. Under certain conditions, she might relax this control so that drones do breed themselves. It is certain that she can regulate her own output of eggs. When the hive is still building a complement of drones, she lays more. When it is becoming overcrowded, she lays less. And when overcrowding and shortages of resources are so severe that the hive can no longer expand and may face outright destruction- why, then, it is only natural that she should breed new queens."

The camera zoomed in on the caproid. It was stroking something, and largely blocking it from view, but what could be glimpsed was unmistakable. It was approximately ovoid, more than half a meter long, and lined with geodesic ribs. It was, unquestionably, a parasitoid egg, one twice as large as any laid before.

"I do not believe they will offer this one up voluntarily," Zaratustra said.

"I fully expect they will not," Nibeaux said nastily. "That is why I am sending you in to get it. NOW."

There was a long, tense silence, and the tension did not ease when Zaratustra finally spoke: "I refuse."

Nibeaux stared, once again more in surprise than in anger. "You accepted me as your commander, and you accepted your own current position, which carries the express responsibility of assisting my research in every way possible," he said. "Will you make a lie of your own word?"

Zaratustra allowed another long, tense silence to pass before he answered: "My pledge is to assist you, not to follow every command you may give. I respectfully submit that I cannot carry out your command, as given, with any reasonable chance of success, and that an attempt to do so would in all probability end in my own death. Since I certainly cannot render assistance to you as a corpse, I am in no way bound to follow this order. If you were to provide me with enough resources to have a chance of success, I may reconsider-"

Nibeaux cut in: "What do you want, Zaratusra?"

"More exotroopers," Zaratustra answered promptly. "Not trainees, squires or rookies, but full-fledged, battle-tested finbacks."

Martinez was already typing on her work station. "I believe," she said, "that that can be arranged…"

June 17

As the transport helicopter flew, a loud, barely-friendly debate issued from its two passengers. "So tell me just how this makes sense," said the Tick. "You get yourself knocked over by an RPG while fighting a superior force for possession of a worthless concrete box. I risk my own neck just to pull you out of harm's way. And then they give _you_ a medal?"

"The medal expressly says, `for injury while under fire,'" the Flea said. His left arm was in a sling, covered by a transplanted breastplate panel bolted to his arm and forearm plates. "I was injured, you weren't."

"Only if you don't count a concussion. Or the ringing that's _still_ in my ears!"

"Well, it's turned out for the best for us in any event," the Flea said. "By the time we get back on the line, the idiotic Kosovo Polje pocket will be dismantled, and the generals will let us get back to kicking Shqip ass on our turf." His voice trailed off as he saw the unmistakable form of Omega Aleph.

"So, what do you think the chances are that this will be good?" said the Tick.


	16. Preemptive strike

**Here's another chapter without Aliens or Preds to speak of. I had some trouble with working out the setting, and as a result I'm going back to revise the description of Omega Aleph in chapter 13.**

**Preemptive strike**

Omega Aleph, current location classified: 1300 June 17, 2044

The rabbit was white, but without the pink eyes of an albino. It had for this reason been set aside while its siblings and cousins were used and soon enough killed as lab animals. It gave no display of resistance nor sign of pleasure as human hands picked it up; while it had been spared human cruelty, it had known no kindness. It was held up briefly, at arm's length. Then the human held it to his chest, but only with one arm, to free the other arm to open the top of a glass tank. The rabbit was lowered into the tank, which was long and wide enough for two or three humans to lie in comfortably. The rabbit's feet set down on soil, something it had never felt before. Some dim and dormant instinct told it to dig, and it tried, but the earth proved only a few centimeters deep. It scarcely began before its feet scraped glass. After a few tries with the same result, it gave up, and began sniffing around for food.

There was no food, but it found a dish of water, and drank its fill. Then, perhaps feeling other instincts begin to stir, it surveyed its surroundings, with eyes wide and big ears held high. Its eyes lit on a stout branch that ran the length of the tank. But the branch was not all that was there; what was wrapped around it? Only eons of instinct could have told it, and these had long sense been muffled by generations of inbreeding and peaceful captivity. Even so, it took a couple hops back when the thing on the branch moved. It turned to look again. The thing on the branch was moving without legs, seeming to flow like water over the earth. The rabbit ran, only to collide with its reflection in the glass. It turned left and ran along the wall, turned left again when it reached another wall. Then it stopped, for the thing was now in front of it, but still behind it too. Then short, blunt teeth sunk into its shoulder, and cool, smothering coils wrapped around it. It let out a single, pitiful shriek as the coils contracted. Its windpipe remained open, and it inhaled and exhaled faster than it had in its life. But each breath drew less than the last, as the coils drew tighter and tighter around its chest, not breaking its ribs but inexorably compressing its rib cage. Its last act was to open its mouth wide in a silent scream, and the expression of pain and terror was still on its face as the snake began to ingest its corpse.

Nibeaux smiled down at the snake. "Well, Sophie, it seems you got a bit of sport before your dinner," he said in amusement. "Between us, I'm very glad I had you brought here. Between Frankepanic's woolgathering, Zaratustra's insubordination and everyone else's sycophancy, I was starting to forget what pleasant company was like."

The room had been a large office for the mobile lab commander. Now, it was two-thirds snake tank, with the remaining third going to a small desk and a small bookcase. Nibeaux walked to his desk, looked at the screen of a laptop and pushed a few keys without sitting down, and then turned to the book case. Most of the books were at least a century old, and a few dated back to the 1600s. All were concerned in some way with magic, and particularly the varieties intended to do harm. Nibeaux's eyes settled on a work titled Malleus Maleficarum, and he took it out. "Always good for a laugh, if nothing else," he mused.

Just then, a message came from the intercom: "The new security personnel will arrive in one minute. Do you want to come out to meet them?"

"Certainly," Nibeaux said, though he looked far from pleased. He returned the book to the shelves and stepped out. His office was at the base of a 6-meter-tall, two-story conning tower that stood to the right of the helipad. The upper floor was wider than the one below, overhanging a walkway that encircled the base of the conning tower. At the top left corner, the walkway extended to the helipad, past the huge, open-platform elevator that brought helicopters up from a small hangar within the vehicle. Nibeaux arrived just as the finbacks disembarked with two crates about as large as themselves.

"Did someone want a pickle jar opened?" the Flea said.

From a turret-like structure on the roof of the conning tower, a radar dish rose up on an extendable mast. Rausch frowned, listening to something on his earpiece communicator. "We must get inside. There are multiple incoming signals," he told them urgently. As he spoke, air raid sirens sounded. Bullet-proof shutters snapped shut over the windows. From either side of the conning tower top, racks of long-range Surface-to-Air Missiles extended, and at the corners of the helipad, turrets with double 35 mm cannons and tube-launched short-range SAMs rose into position.

"The helicopter was followed," Nibeaux said darkly. The helicopter took off at once. The Flea and the Tick were escorted to a small elevator in the corner of the conning tower. The Flea broke away, shouting something about his "luggage".

"There are 12 incoming signals, with speeds in the high subsonic range," a sensor officer's voice spoke in Rausch's earpiece. "They look like planes, probably turboprops. 90% probability that at they are high-speed turboprop trainers."

The long-range SAMS began launching before the craft were even in sight. The attackers in turn launched their countermeasures at extreme range. Clouds of smoke and chaff filled the sky. Seek-and-destroy mini-rockets sailed through the air, homing in on sensor signatures, weapons fire and the exhaust of missiles in flight. One of these knocked out a radar dish on a short-range AA turret.

Four planes got close enough for a strafing run. They were shaped like cigars, with two coaxial propellers in the nose and two more in the tail. The craft were a type that had been marketed as a training craft for jet fighter pilots, but users had found it quite useful in many combat roles. These particular craft were laden with 15 cm anti-tank missiles, with a 57 mm automatic cannon and a 23 mm gatling gun added for good measure. They fired their guns first, starting before they had cleared the smoke. The 57 mm guns fired four rounds per second, with a sound like tribal war drums. The 23 mm gatling guns fired a mind-boggling 300 rounds per second in a single screech of rage. The fire from the guns was concentrated on the conning tower. The mast-mounted radar was blown away, a SAM emplacement was destroyed, and a 57 mm shell hit one of the windows in the upper deck, gutting the main control room.

With the control tower damaged, the mobile lab's remaining defenses fell into disarray. The short-range turrets knocked out only one plane, and three missiles got through. Two were shaped-charge warheads, while a third was an Explosively-Formed Penetrator device. The threat seemed smalll, however. The armor around the lab was a full meter thick, though about half of that thickness consisted of hollow spaces between laminae. The shaped-charge missiles did indeed do minimal damage: Flexible outer laminae deflected the warheads about 30 degrees, and the jets of liquid metal they released were effectively dissipated by the hollow spaces, many of which were filled with flame retardant and shock-absorbing foam. But the hemispherical slug released by the EFP missile crashed through one lamina after another, making an unnerving rapid-fire succession of metallic pings heard throughout the lab. It finally shattered against a set of tungsten polymer rods among the innermost lamina, but fragments of it (and assorted shrapnel from the vehicle's own armor) penetrated the main lab area.

Automatic cannon fire brought down another plane as it strafed the conning tower. The remaining planes hugged the ground, at times dipping below the level of the guns. They concentrated their fire on the track units. Meanwhile, at the edge of the helipad, the Flea had opened one of the crates, and had just finished setting up the minigun on a tripod. He drew a bead just ahead of a low-flying plane and fired a full belt. The cockpit was smashed like a light bulb under a hammer, and the nose tore apart, the two propellers flying to either side, with a gush of fuel that ignited the plane in mid air.

The last plane circled for a final, diving attack. A sizable bomb lowered from its belly. The Flea blasted away to no avail. Rausch was shouting something unintelligible. Then there was a brilliant flash of light on the roof, and another on the leading edge of the plane. The flash became a line that slashed across the wing and the fuselage. When the light touched the bomb, it exploded, reducing the plane to unrecognizable fragments, except for a piece of wing that tumbled to the ground, glowing white hot where it had been sliced from the plane.

On the deck around the tower, Frankepan stood, holding the Hunter's anti-ship weapon.


	17. Damage control

**Damage control**

Omega Aleph: 1500 June 17, 2044

Martinez reported to Frankepanic, "The direct damage to our lab was minimal. However, a freezer holding a dozen parasitoid eggs was hit. Six eggs were destroyed outright, and the rest thawed, releasing the ectoparasitoids. Four were captured, one was destroyed and one… made successful implantation. On Dr. Krnabeg. There was also some trouble in the behavioral research section. It appears that one of the parasitoids confined there escaped after its freezer failed, and freed five more. All of them have remained confined, however, and the finbacks are dealing with it now…"

The behavioral research section was below the main lab, between the nest chamber and the rear of the vehicle, along with an incubation room where animals were impregnated and a refrigerated storage area where eggs, ectoparasitoids and carcasses were held. Zaratustra now led the Flea and the Tick from an elevator to its sealed door. He cocked his head to listen. "Someone made it to the failsafe chamber," he said. "I can hear sobbing."

He entered a code, and the hatch opened automatically. A bulkhead behind it rose after a second code was entered. A woman staggered out, covered in blood, crying and speaking in half-intelligible Italian. She bumped into the Flea, and almost fell down the stairs. He took hold of her shoulders until she looked steady. When he let go, she tried to throw her arms around him. He pushed her back. "It's all fine now, sweetheart. If you need to thank me, go to my room later." She staggered to the elevator.

"If you are done with flirtations…" Zaratustra said. He led the way into the chamber, and the Tick shut the outer door. The corpse of a second researcher lay across the floor. Zed nonchalantly stood on it while he opened the inner door. As the bulkhead rose, a parasitoid stuck its head underneath to snap its proboscis at a relatively vulnerable calf servo. His only reaction was to push a button that brought the bulkhead back down. When no further sound came, he raised the bulkhead again.

The behavioral research lab was divided into four chambers. The first was the observation room, and the other three were at right angles to it. In the center, viewable through a wall of one-way glass but not directly accessible, was the testing room. On either side of the testing room was a smaller chamber with six freezers, each holding a parasitoid. Now, a screen barred the one-way glass, but a steady rain of blows had already bowed it out far enough to fracture the glass. A dead parasitoid and four butchered scientists lay about the room. More thumping came from the left freezer room. "There is one still in the left freezer room, three are in the observation chamber, and six are still confined on the right. They had the presence of mind to keep four of the creatures inside."

He drew a slug gun, and the Flea and the Tick unlimbered strange new weapons. The Flea held a nitrogen blaster. Where the standard devices had cartridges good for two or three shots, this one was hooked up to a tank mounted between his fins. The Tick carried a very odd device dubbed "Little Mack", like a jack hammer but with something very much like a giant boxing glove on the tip. When he revved a motor, the "glove" began pounding the air at an impressive rate, not quite fast enough to be a blur. Zed approached the door, and the Tick followed, while the Flea stood ready to one side. Zed punched in the code, and the door opened just as the creature was making another charge. It came out at full speed but thoroughly off-balance, and ran straight into Mack's swinging fist. The creature was flung back into the freezer room, and the Flea rushed in to spray it with the blaster. All three finbacks rushed in and manhandled it back into one of the freezers. The lock was broken, but a little spot-welding did the job well enough.

A convenient slot on the door to the testing room allowed them to look inside. Only two of them were attacking the window. A third lay in a pool of yellow-green, smoking blood, either dead or grievously wounded. Containers of various shapes, used to test the parasitoids' skills, were strewn about and smashed, and a Skinner box the size of a telephone booth was in use by the creatures as a battering ram. The Flea put his blaster to the slot and sprayed them both. One was hit solidly, and collapsed. The other darted away, hit by only the periphery of the blast.

Zaratustra waved the Flea back and shut the slot, a moment before a creature slammed into the door. He fired his slug gun into the door; shaped-charge slugs exploded against the metal and blew shrapnel and liquid metal out the far side. There was a terrible shriek, and a hissing of acid blood. His fifth shot hit the lock, knocking the door ajar. The creature slammed against the gap. The Flea fired his blaster. At the same time, Zed fired the gas axe. Its exoskeleton shattered in the combined heat and cold.

The report came in through Nibeaux's earpiece: "The behavior research section is secure. Two specimens recaptured alive." He gave no response. He was staring at the ruins of his office. His computer was smashed, his books torched and shredded, and Sophie had escaped from a breached cage and out a hole in the floor. Frankepanic stood beside him.

"Have you heard of the `bosom serpent' legend?" Frankepanic said, in his latest attempt at conversation. He spoke in English, which most of the multi-national staff knew better than each others' native tongues. Nibeaux nodded absent-mindedly. Frankepanic seemed to take no more notice as he continued, "It is a whole body of myths and folktales about creatures that live inside a person, until they emerge, perhaps killing the person- or else generally making a mess. And now, in the parasitoids, we have the myth fulfilled."

After a long silence, Frankepanic continued, "It makes you think, you know, about the nature of myth and the nature of truth. For countless millennia, myths must have been the only form of knowledge men had. Then, with writing and civilization, there was history, which in the end was not so different. I think the whole venture of `historical review' is rooted in a refusal to acknowledge that fact. Then, in just the last few centuries, science came around. It has been very imposing upon men. It will not accept stories or even written records, but facts: physical evidence, measurements, repeatable experiments; facts, facts and more facts. And men have long since grown tire of it. And I wonder if what we are doing is the straw that breaks the camel's back. With the best training, best tools, best instruments… the best we can do is bring a myth to life. Full circle."

Nibeaux finally spoke. "So what are you saying?" he said. "That we can do nothing with the parasitoids?"

"No… But I think that puts it the wrong way round, as it were. In the end, I think we will find that they are the ones who use us. I think we will also find that they are more than creatures of another planet orbiting another sun. I am convinced of it, and I assumed you reached the same conclusion even sooner. They are beings of another universe, and not subject to the rules of ours. How else could they grow so large, so fast? How else could they rewrite their very genetic code in a matter of days? How else could they be so strong?"

Nibeaux let out an irritable sigh. "Frankepanic, have you ever studied magic?" He picked up one of the few books relatively intact. "It is described as `tribal religion'. But it is more- to some eyes, less- than that. Religion, as it is normally defined, is about worship to the supernatural. The goal is always first and foremost to please or at least appease the gods, demons, spirits and forces of the supernatural. But magic is, ultimately, about what the supernatural can do for you. A magician does not cajole and beg the gods for help; he makes them give it. I consider it the one completely practical philosophy of living. That is why I find it so appealing."

"So you don't really believe," Frankepanic said heavily.

"Belief and disbelief have no meaning to me," Nibeaux answered. "That is the beauty of magic. Its power, by definition, lies in practice, not in any belief, unless it is mere confidence that the rituals will have the intended effect. A magician does not need to know or even care what beings or forces he is calling upon. He leaves that to theologians with nothing better to do. All a magician does is get results. And so will I."

Beneath the floor, an ectoparasitoid moved toward the sound, scurrying among the beams and cables. It stopped at the sound of a second voice. The creature had nothing that could pass for a mind, and only the bare bones of a central nervous system, but it had fine-tuned senses and instincts, and the latter warned against attacking potential hosts while two or more were together. Then loud thudding announced the departure of one of the hosts. It scurried forward, toward a most convenient hole. The host was actually bending down to peer into the hole. The ectoparasitoid leaped. But it went nowhere. Blunt teeth had a hold of it, and scaly coils were wrapping around it. As it was dragged into the darkness, it wrapped its own tail around the body of its adversary and searched for whatever mouth this attacker made have. Nibeaux saw only the hint of motion in the dim light as the parasitoid and the snake writhed out of sight, striving to strangle each other.


	18. Egg hunt

**Egg hunt**

Undisclosed location in South Ossetia: June 17, 2044

In the two months since the sinking of _Papa Juan Paolo_, Ling, his employers and various national entities had been very busy. Several other parasitoid outbreaks had occurred, before and after the destruction of Envers' central operation. Ling himself had first investigated a possible infestation on the Russian-Chechen border (narrowly avoiding a mysterious thermonuclear fireball that made further inquiry moot), then worked his way west. As international health worker, he had talked the Georgian Navy into firing and sinking a possible second infested ghost ship. A lone drone that appeared around Istanbul was killed by the Turkish military well before he arrived, but he had ensured that its carcass disappeared before it could be examined too closely. A parasitoid that somehow arrived in Romania got further, depopulating the sizable tenement where Ling and a crew of the well-armed but dubiously trained militants dubbed "Keystone Kommies" hunted it down and leveled the building for good measure. He had then doubled back to deal with a major infestation at a harbor town in eastern Greece; the detonation of a serendipitously placed natural gas tanker had resolved the situation well enough. Then had come leads and the occasional actual parasitoids in Hungary, Macedonia, Dalmatia and even Italy.

As urgent as the infestations sometimes were, his primary mission was to look for any cases where individuals and organizations had had the presence of mind to take an egg, ectoparasitoid or larva whole and alive. He and his mostly unseen support staff had determined that this had been done no more or less than three times. An ectoparasitoid had been captured by a group of Bulgarian smugglers who then shipped it to Hungary, apparently with the intent of selling it to one of the western European states. The plan had gone awry when the creature escaped and began implantation in one of the conspirators, who happened to be driving a truck at the time. A fiery crash had left no survivors, and no one went to the trouble of attempting an autopsy. Envers had sent several eggs to Macedonia, the original center of his operation, where Ling and another "KK" crew had found and destroyed three of them. It had been determined that at least one more had been shipped shortly before Envers' death to associates in the east. And so, the trail had led Ling back to approximately where he started, in the region known variously as the Federation of Ishkeria (aka Chechnya), Ingushetia, Dagestan and the Osetians, or (despite the best efforts of its inhabitants) "FIDO", in a member widely known as "Casablanca in the Caucasus" or simply as "the gangster republic." It was with a representative of one of the republic's wealthy but less than universally admired citizens that Ling now met.

"So, may I see the merchandise?" Ling said. The dealer held out an ipod. The screen showed an egg encircled by a clamp. "Might I see the actual specimen?"

"Make an offer, and we will see," the seller said with a mirthless grin.

Ling countered with a lethal smile: "If you can show it to me now, I would make it well worth your while." After a pointed pause, he added: "There is no reason to fear betrayal. If we did anything of that kind, then the next time we had to deal with a situation like this, no one would even be willing to meet with us."

"Now we are perfectly willing to let you and yours make a bid. But, there are other bidders."

"Of course not. We, however, are willing to add incentives, monetary and otherwise, to avoid the uncertainty of an auction."

"Well, we would consider that, too. But, even on those terms yours would not be the only offer to be considered. Show us what you are willing to give."

"Very well. Hand me my briefcase."

The briefcase was in the hands of one of four armed guards. The dealer nodded, and the guard handed it over. Ling opened it. It was filled with bundles of Euro notes in sizable but not conspicuous denominations. The dealer took out three bundles for examination, and also casually confirmed that their was nothing under the money. He looked pleased but not unduly impressed. "I assume you can get more," he said.

"I am authorized to offer 75 million," Ling said.

"That's more than enough for us to consider… but not enough to clinch the bid. What other `incentives' can you offer."

"We were sure you would want any and all of our own operatives called off…"

"Of course. And we want the rest to back off, too: the UN, Interpol, the Russian Reform Party, those damn human rights activists. We know your people can do it."

"All acceptable."

Ling smiled. "Too bad you don't have the egg. It was the source of the Stavropol outbreak, was it not?"

"Now why would you believe a thing like that?" the dealer said coolly.

"Never mind why."

"Well, supposing you really did believe that, why would you have come here?"

"Only because it was not wholly my decision. I was already convinced you had lost the egg, but others believed it was still worth checking out."

"Well, then… we can still find a few things to talk about," said the dealer, "starting with how many people followed you here."

"None."

"Now we both know that's not even plausible."

"No," Ling said. "Improbable as it sounds, I was sent here alone. And, in case you were thinking of anything like holding me for ransom, or interrogation, I would not be the one here if I were not wholly expendable."

The dealer raised a shotgun. The guards drew machine pistols. "That will be for others to decide," the "seller" said. "Unless, of course, your organization can make a better offer."

"I see. And what is the other party offering?"

"50 million euros, and the dismissal of charges related to the unfortunate events in Stavropol. As a counteroffer, we would accept the terms already offered, plus an additional 25 million."

"And what makes you think we or the `other party' would let you get away with this?"

"Call it a calculated risk. It comes down to which organization is stronger. A lot of people think your organization is a lot weaker than you want people to think."

"We certainly have limitations, and that is no secret from anyone able to learn of our existence in the first place," Ling said. "And if you know anything about us, you know our greatest limitation is personnel. Even `expendable' persons like me are too few for a loss to go without retaliation. If you kill me, or hand me over to another group, enough others like me will come to destroy your organization. I assume you have also figured out, it is out of the question for me to allow myself to be taken alive."

"So, you are saying you can still commit suicide."

"Oh, I can do more than that."

The guards grabbed his arms. Somehow, he lifted them both off their feet to slam their heads together. The dealer fired a riot slug, but the stunned guards blocked the shot. Just before more guards burst through the door, Ling tossed a lighter onto the two bundles of money on the desk. The bills did not merely ignite; they exploded, thanks to a transparent substance they had been soaked in. The dealer was killed instantly, and guards were knocked down left and right. Ling escaped by ducking below the desktop.

He made his escape without serious opposition or pursuit. He was trailed for a few kilometers by someone that could only be a law enforcement or intelligence agent. The "tail" was too good not to be a professional, but not quite good enough not to look like one. Ling was able to neutralize him easily enough, and even managed to avoid killing him. He made a report later: "The lead was out of date, and had been turned into bait for a trap. This, in itself, is valuable if troubling information. It would appear that our interest in the parasitoids has become known to hostile entities. Greater care will be necessary when investigating future leads. End report."

Omega Aleph: 2300 June 17, 2044

Having moved 100 km north and east, the lab was receiving supplies. A column of 8X8 trucks, huge themselves by any other frame of reference, scuttled up to the lab like hyenas to a dead elephant. At the rear of the front section of the monster vehicle, a loading bay that spanned the vehicle hung down from its belly. The 4X4 m gates at either end were a full 2 m above the ground. Ramps were extended, and the trucks rolled right into the loading bay. Their cargo went directly onto the main elevator, the same one which lifted helicopters up to the pad. Assistance from the Tick and Zed, in their exoskeletons, sped things up greatly. "Explain to me," the Tick griped, "how Buva is fit for combat duty but not cargo handling."

"Cargo handling normally requires two arms," Zed answered calmly.

"Yeah, and so does love-making, and judging from the way he was talking to that Italian, he was up for that. I bet he's doing her right now." (If there had been any takers, he would have won the bet.)

The elevator went up. "This lot is meant for the hangar," Zaratustra said, "so we will be most of the way up before we make a stop."

"What's the lab's power source, anyway?" the Tick said.

"I am fairly certain it is a form of radioactive power, based on decay rather than fission," Zed answered. "The generators are at the base of the fore section, and the electricity is conveyed to motors in the drive units. The corresponding section in the rear section is the food and water stores. If this were food, we would be unloading on the right. Unfortunately, Nibeaux has also been having his test subjects stowed there. That is why our food has lately had a distinct flavor of pig shit."

Their first stop was a largely open floor, occupied by aircraft and anti-aircraft ammunition, spare copter parts, and a complete 2-seat scout/fast-attack copter. They unloaded a rack of missiles and several crates of spare parts. Then the elevator rose to the hangar proper. It was 30 meters long, 20 wide and 15 high. 2 helicopters were present, one with a 9 m fuselage and a two-blade rotor, and another with a 12 m fuelage and the rotor removed. As the unloaded the remaining cargo (mostly fuel drums), the Tick asked about the larger helicopter: "Why is the rotor gone? Is it under repair?"

"No, it's always like that when it's in here. They have to remove the rotor for it to fit in the elevator."

"Another thing I just noticed," the Tick said. "This has just about the same dimensions as you gave for the nest chamber."

"Quite perceptive. From what I have been able to learn, the mobile lab was first designed as a mobile heliport and air-defense platform. The chamber in the rear probably was designed as an auxiliary hangar. In fact, you may have noticed a very large closed door about 5 m lower on the other side of the shaft. That is the door they used to put the queen in the nesting chamber. It would be most unwise to open it again."

Dr. Farnkepanic was standing next to the smaller helicopter. He turned around in surprise and more than a hint of alarm at the exotroopers' approach. "They have you hauling cargo?" he said.

"Yes, by the orders of Nibeaux himself," Zaratustra said. "He felt it would free up staff to prepare for a shipment to national headquarters."

"Yes, yes," Frankepanic said distractedly. "I thought he would have you in the nest by now. You should go talk to him immediately." The finbacks departed. Moments after the elevator disappeared from sight, the helicopter did too.

0030 June 18

The way for the exotroopers into the nest had been prepared by flooding the chamber with nitrogen. Every exposed parasitoid had been chilled into a dormant state. It was not certain, however, how many were fully dormant, for in the minutes it took to apply the chilling gas, the parasitoids had gathered in great heaps in the corners and along the walls, presumably in the hope that some would keep enough warmth to defend the nest if necessary. Unsurprisingly, the pile was deepest around the queen.

The Tick and the Flea were armed as they had been in the behavior lab, with the "Little Mac" and a nitrogen blaster. Zaratustra bore only his slug gun and gas spike, though he had attached an NBR scope to the gun. It had been determined that the scope's radiation interfered with the senses of the parasitoids, and it was hoped that it would deter their attacks the same way UV lamps did. Martinez accompanied them, with non-standard, over-sized arm assemblies with a huge claw on the left arm and a somewhat less massive three-fingered mechanical hand on the right.

Zaratustra emerged from the elevator first. Nothing stirred at his approach, but, as he panned his scope around the room, a few of the creatures moved almost imperceptibly. He held the scope on one of them, and the motion was repeated, but nothing more occurred. "They appear fully unconscious, but some of them appear to respond to basic reflexes. Come out, but be cautious."

Martinez came next, and began clearing a path through the parasitoids, pushing them aside with the mechanical hand and lifting whole bodies with the claw. The Flea followed, and Zed and the Tick formed the rear. One parasitoid, visible between three that covered it, hissed and began to move as Martinez passed. The Flea sprayed it with the blaster, and it went still.

Most of the queen's entourage clung to "her", along with many more drones. The caprinoid was held in the queen's arms, and it in turn had assumed a fetal position around the queen egg. As Martinez pried one of the queen's greater arms aside, it abruptly swung out. Martinez overbalanced and fell from the sudden lack of resistance alone, while the Flea took a direct hit and flew to the wall. It had been only a reflex, but the queen was stirring.

Zaratustra ran forward to assist Martinez as she pried the caprinoid from the queen's arms, and began prying the egg from the caprinoid. The caprinoid awoke with a scream, and here and there more cries answered it. Zed slapped the caprinoid, snatched up the egg when it dropped and thrust it into Martinez's hands. A few parasitoids began crawling out from under their brethren, and many more stirred. "Run!" he ordered.

Martinez ran for the elevator. A parasitoid pounced into her path, only to be knocked aside by the Tick with Little Mac. The impact fractured its carapace. The caprinoid gave chase, sidestepping Zed. The Flea, having freed himself from a pile of crushed drones, grabbed the caprinoid by its horns and threw it to one side. Martinez reached the elevator and started up. The Tick stood guard in front of the cage.

The Tick threw back the first drone, and two more after it. But when three of them attacked at once, one of them ducked under Little Mack's sweep and slammed him into the cage. Then three more, five, a dozen more piled against him. He brought Little Mack to bear again and knocked them back one, two or three at a time, but soon they were so tightly backed that when he hit one in the front, it merely ran into its fellows and bounced back, until the front ranks were pummeled into pulp. Then the ones at the rear started running over the others' backs. For a few seconds, these were thrown back as the Tick swung Little Mack over his head. Then the mob surged forward and imploded into a vicious scrum. The Flea rushed in, spraying the drones, pulling them off and simply knocking them senseless with kicks and swings of his guardbrace, but he could not move enough of them to reach his partner. Screeches, thumps and clangs sounded, and the Tick's helmet bounced out of the pile.

Meanwhile, the queen and her entourage lurched forward, throwing aside half-frozen suinoids. Zaratustra blasted the humanoid. The pongoid struck him with a ham-sized fist, knocking his helmet askew. He countered with a blind thrust of the gas spike, and the pongoid fell back screaming with a shoulder wound. The alpha drone came next, thrusting its tail ahead of it. Zaratustra leveled the gun and fired, but the drone staggered to one side after the NBR beam hit it in the muzzle. The slug instead hit the queen in the shoulder.

The queen screamed and charged. Zaratustra brought the gun to bear in a split second, waving the beam across her snout and even firing a shot that damaged her crest. She staggered, flailed blindly, but kept coming. Zed ducked under a flailing arm, punched her in the chin and tripped her with a blow to the ankle. The queen fell screaming, and every drone not still frozen turned and screamed in answer. In the moment it took the drones to prepare to attack, Zed put the gun to the queen's head. "You know the drill," he said. The drones froze, though they continued to scream.

0100 May 18

Zaratustra presented two royal eggs to Nibeaux. "This is the one Martinez brought up, and after I brought the queen down, they handed over this one themselves," Zaratustra said. "We killed about sixteen drones. I suspect the underlying problem was that their increased numbers left their status relative to us in doubt, but once they were beaten, they reverted to total submission. A repeat of this struggle seems unlikely to me, even if you bring the nest back up to the same size."

"Good work, Zaratustra," said Nibeaux. "Rest- ah, of course, I should say tell your men to rest, and do whatever you like. But have them back up by 1200. That is when the shipment to headquarters is leaving, and I would rather you and the men handled the cargo."


	19. Gentlemen of the Balkans

**Gentlemen of the Balkans**

The Bulgarian is the gentleman of the Balkans: If he stabs you, he will stab you from the front, not in the back.

Provenance early 1900s

Omega Aleph: 0500 June 18, 2044

Rausch spoke on the screen in Nibeaux's office. "Facilities have been prepared here at Omega Facility to receive the parasitoids. All recommendations for containment and control have been implemented. We are very pleased at your report of a possible `royal' egg. With this development, it may be possible to shift operations to Omega, and return Omega Aleph to conventional WMD development. Here is what I wish you to send: A dozen regular eggs, plus the royal egg. That will allow us to set up a functional nest immediately. Ah, and headquarters has decided that any additional royal eggs should be sent to Omega. Have there been any additional royal eggs found?"

"No," Nibeaux said.

"Well, keep an eye out, and if more appear inform me immediately. Omega out."

Nibeaux made a sign at the blank screen. "Out yourself, you fat faggot."

There was a loud rumble as the main elevator rose to the top. To the right of the conning tower, two enormous doors swung open, and the 5X12 m platform rose into view with a 12 m helicopter fuselage aboard. Sgt. Zed, the Flea and the Tick stood beside it. A pair of miniature tractors helped maneuver it onto the pad, and a fixed crane was used to attach the rotor. The Flea gave the rotor a push, spinning it through half a rotation before the engines came to life. The helicopter rose, and flew away. Then, when it had traveled almost 5 kilometers, it exploded in midair.

0000 June 19

The aviation shift chief was obviously nervous as he reported to Nibeaux and Frankepanic. "The evidence at hand is more than enough to establish key facts," he said. "Fact 1: The helicopter did not merely crash, it entirely disintegrated. Fact 2: No hostile aircraft was in position to make the attack. Fact 3: The only type of weapon that could have destroyed the craft so quickly and completely is a missile, but there was no projectile or exhaust trail. Fact 4: The explosion was centered in the hold, not the engines, fuel tanks or magazines. The only explanation not ruled out is an explosive device of 2 kg or more planted in the hold."

"I see," Nibeaux said. "Do you have any thoughts on who could have planted it?"

"I believe the hangar crew can be ruled out. Such sabotage is not impossible, of course, but the saboteur would have needed an entire shift crew as accomplices. A lone operative, or two or three, is far more likely. That leaves the group that loaded the cargo: Three finbacks, plus Dr. Martinez."

"What about the lab staff?" Nibeaux pressed. "The ones who selected the eggs and packed them for

shipping."

"I think they can also be ruled out. They were even more scrutiny than the hangar crew, and in any event, the eggs were weighed before packing, and the containers were weighed before and after. The mass of the packed containers is accounted for to within 100 g- nowhere near enough to represent a planted charge." He frowned. "Though, now that you bring it up, a saboteur could have switched a charge with an egg. But they were even more heavily supervised than..."

Nibeaux's communicator buzzed. He answered irritably, "No, I'm in an important- What?!... Have you confirmed... Yes? All right, I will be down immediately." He left without explanation.

"I'm sure you are right," said Frankepanic. "The lab security is too great to house a saboteur. Focus further investigations on the finbacks."

0100

Frankepanic frowned as he examined Zaratustra. "Is he even awake?"

"That depends on definitions," Martinez said. After searching for some time, they had found the sergeant, still in armor though with outer helmet, visor and mask removed, leaning against a wall in the storage area. His arms were crossed, his eyes were open, and one foot was raised in the air. Only an elbow and a shoulder touched the wall, so it was not readily apparent that he was depending on the wall for support; he looked like a sleeping flamingo.

"His current condition is one step up from full sleep, which could easily pass for a coma," Martinez explained. "It is approximately a somnambulic state. He can move around, talk, even fight."

"Can you wake him?"

"Yes."

"One more thing I would like explained first," Frankepanic said. "I have heard it said repeatedly that he cannot lie. How is that possible?"

"A paper on him addressed that very question at great length, without reaching a definite conclusion," Martinez said. "But several issues are apparent. First, he has an impaired `theory of mind': He has difficulty separating the knowledge, ideas and feelings of others from his own. One of the predictable results is that he simply cannot be sure what lies he can get away with. Second, he also tends to understand words and phrases literally. He is easily confused by figurative language, and `counter-factual' statements disorient him even more. He is only known to express counterfactuals as `if-then' statements. Third, and this is my own idea, he may have limited ability to distinguish between kinds of counterfactuals: things that are or are not physically possible, for example, or things that would or would not benefit him. In any event, whenever examined, he has always either told the truth, or said nothing. As a behavioral scientist, you could probably say more than I could."

"Well, it does make sense. Now wake him." Martinez spoke a quick word or two in German. Zaratustra stirred without losing his balance, and lowered his leg.

"What is the situation?" he said.

"The helicopter was destroyed, by a bomb."

"I know. Why do you need my help?"

"You and your men were the last people with an opportunity to sabotage it. Now we want you to answer a few questions. First: Did you plant a bomb?"

"No."

"Did Dr. Martinez plant the bomb?"

"No. She never entered the helicopter."

"Did Josevic or Kosmets plant the bomb?" Zaratustra was silent.

Nibeaux's voice came from down the corridor: "Let us put the question another way: Did you see Josevic or Kosmets plant the bomb?"

"No."

Nibeaux stalked his way to the exotrooper. "Could either of them have planted the bomb without being observed?"

"Yes."

Nibeaux frowned, then continued with a sly smirk: "Do either of them have training or experience making bombs?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Could they have made the bomb from the materials they brought with them?"

"No. I took an inventory of the equipment. There were no raw explosives, and nothing that could be used as a detonator."

"Did either of them have contact with someone in the lab who might have provided a bomb?"

"Yes. Maria diMaccia, a lab technician for Dr. Frankepanic."

Dr. Frankepanic interjected nastily, "Who gave the order for you to load the cargo?"

He spoke an answer in German, then stiffened. He leaned back against the wall and slid down until he fell. Martinez leaned down to examine him. "He's out. No more questions until tomorrow morning."

"But what did he say to the last question?" Frankepanic fumed.

"He said, `You would not ask the question if you did not already know the answer.'"

0500

Josevic, aka the Flea, was roused by a knock at the door of the Italian lab technician's quarters. "Maria, I shall return in but a moment," he said to his companion. He pulled on a pair of shorts and answered the door. Six armed and unhappy-looking men were waiting at the door. He turned and said, "Ah, Maria... This might take a while."

The Tick was already sitting in the newly-commissioned brig (originally a pig pen) when the Flea arrived. "Okay, stones for brains," he said to the Flea, "what _kaka _have you stepped in this time?"

1200 hours

Two security officers stood nose-to-nose with the Flea. One of them did most of the talking: "There's no question you did it. Your own sergeant admitted it. But we haven't been able to make heads or tails of why. You are a decorated veteran. You have risked your life many times over for your country. Your record for courage and loyalty is unquestioned. Except, of course, for General Fedorin, who filed a single complaint charging you and several others for treason, gross insubordination, assault... and murder of civilians."

For a moment, the Flea looked puzzled. Then he chuckled. "Was he the one they left in charge of the irregulars? I never heard a name, but I remember... He got into an argument with Princip while we were cleaning up the irregulars. Ah, memories."

There was a long silence. Then one of the guards coughed and said, "Be that as it may... Well, it has been difficult to understand how you could be involved in sabotage. Then we figured it out. You must not have known what you were doing when you put the bomb aboard the helicopter. Dr. diMaccia told you to do it, didn't she?"

Again, the Flea showed confusion. "Who, Maria??"

"We know it will be difficult to accept, let alone confess, but all the facts already point-"

"Look, let's straighten a few things out. That biologist lady-"

"She's a video technician."

"Whatever. I'm sure Maria's booksmart, but take it from me, she's an amateur when it comes to anything that counts in spying and whatnot. She's definitely the shy type. And, she doesn't talk English well. She's only said two complete sentences I understood."

"I'm sure she was very convincing," the officer continued, smoothly disregarded what he did not want to hear. "What did she say you were putting in there? Another specimen? A personal item?"

"Let's straighten this out: I didn't put anything on the helicopter. Maria didn't say anything about the helicopter. And the only things we put on board were two flats of eggs and the canister with the big egg."

"Admit it: She talked you into it. She manipulated you."

"Not that way."

The silent officer spoke: "Soldier, we are being very patient. But if you don't tell us the truth now, we're going to have to charge you as a co-conspirator."

"C'mon!" said the other officer. "This is your one chance to set things right. Don't keep defending someone who doesn't even care about you!"

"What's this act supposed to be? Dumb cop-bad cop?" The Flea laughed. "I suppose you're trying to intimidate me. Let me tell you a story, about that general... I was a squire then, and Zed and Zotgjakt were Princip's rookies. We found out that six of his best men, all ex-soldiers that Belgrade had given `psychiatric discharges', had 400 complaints of rape against them. The lot were driving around in a van, grabbing Shqip girls, passing 'em round and cutting trophies out of them. It was probably against the general's wishes, but he knew, and he did nothing We raided their barracks, and dumped a box full of those trophies in full view of the men. Then this general ran in, waving a piece of paper and demanding we release the prisoners and all evidence into his custody. We knew some high-ups had been covering for the scum. I went up behind the general and held his arms while Princip fed him the paper. Then Princip just nodded, and three of us grabbed two rapists each, carried them outside and killed them. I took care of mine by twisting a leg off one and beating the other to death with it. An' Princip made the general watch." He chuckled. "So, the question you should ask is... who's supposed to be intimidated by whom?"

1400 hours

The same two security officers interrogated Dr. Maria diMaccia. "I still don't understand," she said in slightly fractured English. "Is Boochie in trouble? Am I in trouble?"

"We are sure you are quite innocent," said the senior officer, a half-English man named Haig. "As for... Corporal Josevic, we are at this point simply making inquiries. Tell me, when did you first meet him?"

"The finbacks rescued me from the parasitoids two days ago," she said. "He was the only one who spoke to me. He invited me to, uh, talk later, and I found him. We talked, as much as we could, and then, well, things happened. I never did anything like that before, understand? He didn't- take advantage of me either. I could see he was a kind man, and strong and handsome. I- I asked him to- to give me a first time, see?"

Haig nodded. "Why do you call him Boochie?"

"He said, the other finbacks call him Boocher, something like that... He said it means he is very fast. I call him Boochie, and he laughs, see? Is that not his name, or does it not mean what he said?"

"His full name is Lazar Josevic, and the name he gave you is fair enough," said the other officer, checking his ipad lexicon. "His `battle name' means the Flea, and is transliterated `Buva', but the actual Serbo-Croat pronunciation is more like `bu-cher'."

"Have you or he talked about your work here?"

"No." She blushed. "He mostly talks about me."

After a half-hour of further discussion, Haig told her, "Well, what you just told us is very helpful for understanding Josevic. We hope to sort this out by the end of the day. You can return to duty now. However, Dr. Frankepanic has requested that you be transferred from the Behavioral Studies lab to egg storage..."

After Maria and the other officer had left, Haig made a call over a restricted channel: "Josevic is to be held as prime suspect in the bombing. For the time being, charge him with obstruction and insubordination, and leave it at that. He and Kosmets are to be relieved of regular duties and disarmed until further notice. They may be assigned specific duties at the discretion of lab chiefs, but under no circumstances are they to be rearmed or returned to full armor. Technician Dr. Maria diMaccia is to remain under surveillance." A little later, he made another call over another channel: "All the `problem' personnel have been removed from duty without leaving a paper trail. So, doctor, when and where do you want me to make the delivery?"

2200 hours

"Having reviewed the results of the preliminary investigation," Rausch's grim image said, "I must conclude that Dr. Nibeaux bears some responsibility. I have no reason to believe you had any part in the loss of the shipment-" A scowl showed that he was not convinced to the contrary, either. "But, whatever happened occurred in your lab, and personnel under your command, if not picked for their positions by you, were involved at all levels. Furthermore, it was almost certainly your actions which precipitated the recent and alarming developments with the parasitoids. While these events were not foreseeable, your handling of the nest involved excessive risks, and, even if the situation resolves itself without permanent harm, we cannot afford any further risks. Based on these considerations, I have little alternative but to relieve you as acting director of Omega Aleph operations. You will retain most of your current duties, including full control of the main lab, but you will now answer to Dr. Frankepanic. Frankepanic, as new acting director, your first tasks are to find the saboteur or saboteurs, and to determine what is going on in the nests. However, I will hold you accountable, just as I have held Nibeaux responsible."

He frowned and pursed his thick lips, giving himself a passing but easily noticeable resemblance to a bulldog. "I have passed all information on to our backers. They are impressed with your progress, but gravely concerned at the possibility of sabotage. In their last communication, they informed me of their intent to send a representative to inspect Omega Aleph and all personnel, materiel and specimens."

At about this time, somewhere in the more obscure areas of Eurasia, Dr. Ling's phone was ringing.

June 20, 0200 hours

In a superstructure in the rear hull, a smaller counterpart to the conning tower that served as the center for navigation and the mobile lab's defenses against the relatively small threat of armor and mechanized infantry, Nibeaux had settled in to his new office. He was now seated in front of his lab top, staring intently at a live feed from the nest chamber. The feed showed no movement, which was precisely the problem. The queen and the drones had once again packed themselves together in great heaps. By all appearances, they were even more dormant now than when the chamber had been flooded with nitrogen.

There was a rustle from a big backing crate at the far corner of the lab. Dr. Nibeaux shook his head, shut down the computer and went to the box. He lifted the lid, and the head of a great snake rose just high enough to survey the surroundings. "I know it's not much, Sophie," he said. "My fault. I underestimated Frankepanic. He's shown a level of guile and initiative I would never have expected from him. I'm even beginning to wonder if he had something to do with the helicopter explosion. But don't fret; by the time you are ready for your next meal, we will have our old domain back soon enough. Just as soon as I tell Rausch I hold the only viable royal egg in existence..." He glanced to a small, stoutly locked freezer and smiled. Then he glanced down at a massive bulge in the snake's coils. "Not that I plan on feeding you any time soon. What on Earth did you

eat?"

Meanwhile, at nearly the lowest level of Omega Aleph's rear hull, Haig pushed a motorized dolly past the giant crates of stored food, the cramped pens of pigs, and the cage where the Flea and the Tick were playing cards. Neither looked up as he passed.

He reached an elevator, and as it rose, he contemplated his situation. He had been a high-level "security contractor" for more than a decade, and in each of the jobs he had held, he had ended up privy to at least one plot. From third-world dictatorships to multi-national corporations, there were always factions of people vying for more power, or more money, or quite possibly because they were simply predisposed to deception and conspiracy. He took a pragmatic view: As long as the intrigues were directed principally at others in the same organization, they posed no threat to the general public and did not even necessarily mean harm to the organization (especially when, as often happened, two or more of these petty conspiracies worked directly against each other). If he turned a blind eye to conspirators, took their bribes and did the occasional favor, he was not doing any particular harm. If anything, he often told himself, it allowed him to keep better tabs on otherwise furtive activities, in which he could better intervene if some conspiracy became truly dangerous to the world at large. He did not as yet let himself wonder if such a time might be at hand.

He got off at the level of the behavioral lab. He went through two sets of doors before being met by the current intriguer. "The royal egg is still viable, and not at risk of hatching," Frankepanic said after examining the plexiglass box on the dolly. "Put it in one of the empty freezers."


	20. Inquiries

**Inquiries**

Omega Aleph: 1200 June 21, 2044

In a conference room in the main lab, Dr. Nibeaux presided over a meeting. "It has been confirmed," he said, "that this change has affected every parasitoid aboard. The queen, the drones, endoparasitoids and even ectoparasitoids still in the egg have all entered a dormant state, which we have previously seen only as a response to extreme cold. What are your opinions, theories, guesses? Anything will help."

Frankepanic spoke: "Well, I think this is a further validation of Dr. Nibeaux's theory about the origin of the parasitoid monarchs. He proposed that new monarchs would be bred only in response to environmental stress, such as overcrowding. It was on this premise that we allowed the nest to grow as big as it is. In fact, a monarch egg was laid, and in hindsight, it was only to be expected that this would be followed by some change in the nest. The freezing of the nest and substantial loss of drones may have hastened the change. There were four possible reactions. One, fortunately ruled out, was for most or all of the current nest to die spontaneously. The second is to migrate, an option which we obviously have cut off. A third is to hibernate, but I think what we are seeing is not quite the same. The fourth is to change their bodies, in the manner of a rabbit growing winter fur. It is the last possibility that is most likely. Observation in the non-visible radiation spectra shows changes in the parasitoids' exoskeletons, which are most likely preludes to a molt. Once the molt is complete, they will probably be more resistant to cold. There might also be other changes, including an increase in size. Security measures should be changed to prepare for these possibilities."

Nibeaux nodded. "It is the most plausible proposal so far. I would add that it is possible that the parasitoids might still attempt to migrate when the molt is complete, all the more reason to be vigilant. Something which has yet to be explained is the universality of the change. It has not only affected the individuals in the nest. Adults in the behavior lab, embryos and even unhatched eggs are also affected. Why would they also change? For that matter, what could have triggered the change, when they were isolated from the others and exposed to very different stimuli? I, for one, think the queen signaled them to do it, but the nature of the signal is, obviously unknown."

For the next fifteen minutes, possibilities were discussed: pheromones, sound above or below the range of hearing, the narrow-band radiation produced by the creatures, or even literal telepathy. It was Frankepanic who suggested the last possibility, though Nibeaux was the one with a long-standing interest in psychic research.

Nibeaux redirected discussion. "Another issue that needs to be considered is whether the `signal' is part of a truly planned response. I think not. The production of the signal, whatever its nature, and the other parasitoids' response are easily explained as, at most, an instinctive response. However, it is quite possible that, in acting in response to their instincts, they might arrive at a more or less organized attempt at escape. Frankepanic, what have you concluded about their intelligence?"

"My tests subjects consistently tested on the range of human toddlers," Frankepanic answered. He brought up one clip, which showed a parasitoid trying to get into a locked safe. It was pounding the box with increasing fury. "Unfortunately, they almost always try to use force first, and it took some time to make anything sturdy enough to force them to require them to engage their intelligence." An electric shock ran through the safe, throwing back the parasitoid. Sgt. Zed and Martinez ran in. Martinez restrained it with a grappler. Zed held up an oversized key with a diamond head, and then used it to open the safe. A squealing piglet was inside. He closed and locked the safe, and he and Martinez withdrew. The parasitoid picked up the key, opened the lock and seized the piglet. It crushed the life from its prey with its jaws, and then began sucking out blood and flesh with its proboscis. "In a second test, the same individual demonstrated basic shape recognition abilities." A clip showed the parasitoid being offered a selection of five keys, each with a head of a different shape. It picked the one with the diamond head. "When the test was repeated on other subjects, they performed as desired immediately, a point in favor of telepathy."

He showed three images at the same time, each one a cross-section of an alien head. "The issue is complicated by physiology. Here at top and center are the dissected heads of one parasitoid from the nest and one that was isolated in the behavior lab. The latter, as you can see, has a slightly larger brain mass. At bottom is a narrow-band radiation scan of the monarch's skull, scaled down in proportion to the difference in mass between monarch and drone. Even with this adjustment, the monarch's brain has half again the proportions of a drone's. And, if an isolated drone is mentally equivalent to a human child, the monarch could quite conceivably be equal to a human adult."

As the meeting wound down, Nibeaux said, "There is one more item of business: the royal eggs. The one on the helicopter was not the only one recovered from the nest." There was nothing but silence. "I intend to report that the second royal egg was found today. But, in fact, it has been in my possession all along. As some of you know, I was ordered by Rausch to deliver all specimens to him. If necessary, I can show that Rausch's order violated rules established by his superiors, but I would prefer to avoid a formal investigation."

He brought up an NBR image of what looked like a cross between a crab and a cockroach. "Here is a scan of the egg in my possession. It is about 60 centimeters long, and the ectoparasitoid within could be a meter long, counting tail. The fibrous membrane around it is almost certainly a set of wings, homologous to the flaps on the the normal `facehugger'. There are further differences. Most strikingly, it has functional mouthparts and a digestive system, which would allow it to survive for a substantial amount of time. It also has a complete reproductive system, rather than a single embryo, which would allow it to infect multiple hosts. The means of infection may also differ. The ovipositor is part of the tail, and may be capable of injecting embryos directly into a host's body cavity. It is possible that the royal ectoparasitoid represents an earlier phase of the species' evolutionary history."

"And where," Frankepanic said, "is the specimen?"

"Oh, a safe place, very safe. I intend to keep it that way." Nibeaux subtly smirked. "Ah, and one last thing: I received word from Rausch this morning confirming that we can expect a visit from a representative of our `sponsors'. He will arrive the 23rd."

`1400 hours

Duties in the nursery were by far the most unpleasant, even when the hosts were only pigs. The last four days had been nightmarish. It had been established that the ectoparasitoids created amnesia in a victim, so that they could not recall being attacked and thus possibly remain unaware of their fate even if they knew about the parasitoid life cycle. This had not stopped Dr. Krnabeg from recognizing why he was under quarantine. For three days, he had wept, begged, beat at the walls and once attempted suicide. (He had attempted to hang himself with his clothes, and had been stripped in response.) Now, about 24 hours after he had been expected to die, he was huddled in a corner. He could be heard saying intermittently, "I'm alive... I'm OK... I'm alive..." and sometimes shouting, "I'm OK! I'M OK!! LET ME OUT!!!"

Dr. Lewontin, the second of Nibeaux's two female subchiefs, was currently making repeated scans of him with an NBR scope. "The endoparasitoid is definitely not dead. Neither is it encysted." It was known that embryos sometimes failed to latch on successfully to the host's heart. When this happened, the embryo would encase itself in a cocoon or cyst, only to emerge later in a fashion that was, if possible, even more agonizing and gruesome then a normal parasitoid "birth". "On the other hand, it is definitely not growing. However, it is releasing significant amounts of a chemical we have not seen before. At the same time, the host's own hormone production seems to be rising..."

Suddenly, Krnabeg began shouting again, but these were not the same words: "I'M HUNGRY! FEED ME! I'M HUNGRY!! FEED ME!! I'M HUNGRY!!!" Then even more abruptly, he made a flying kick at the one-way glass. He bounced back, his ankle twisted and his foot bloody, and a shocked female technician was the first to realize: "HE BROKE THE GLASS! He's trying to break out!"

"It's only some minor fracturing in the outermost layer of plexiglass, and there are five more behind it," Lewontin said calmly. "But he can certainly hurt himself! Security, restrain him before he can do more damage!"

Krnabeg continued to kick. By the fourth blow, shards of glass were falling from the first layer, and the second was heavily fractured. Then a running forearm smash spider-webbed the third layer. Another charge was interrupted by the entry of two security guards. The glass had long since become too bloody and fractured to see through, but they could hear all too clearly the shouts, thumps and screams. After perhaps three seconds of the unseen pitched battle, a guard came hurtling helmet-first through the remaining glass. The technician shrank back, staring at the ruined body, mouthing screams that somehow failed to escape her throat. She didn't see the bloody arms that shot through the broken glass, until she was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled in. She screamed then, long, loud and repeatedly. There were sounds of tearing cloth and tearing flesh. Her cries became a ululating, high-pitched wail that went on and on like a siren. The sound had not yet stopped when Lewontin fled the area, slamming a door and then a bulkhead behind her.

1700 hours

"Three are confirmed dead, and there can't be any serious doubt about two more that are missing," Lewontin reported wearily. "At least two hosts are also dead, but Krnabeg and two sows are still moving around in plain view. When the embryos went dormant, they must have triggered a hormonal changes that send the hosts into a feeding frenzy. It makes sense enough: The endoparasitoid can wait for the environment to improve, and in the meantime, the host fattens itself. The change could also encourage the host to migrate to another area."

"Give me a bottom line," Nibeaux said. "Is it feasible to retake the nursery?"

"I can't advise strongly enough against it," Lewontin told him. "I don't believe the hosts could be recaptured alive in their present state, and even trying to kill them would involve an inordinate risk to personnel. Even worse, the hosts got right to the entrance of the lab before containment was established. If we reopen the nursery and something goes wrong, the only line to fall back to will be the elevator shaft."

Nibeaux sighed. "I will take your recommendation under consideration. But I believe I should inspect the labs in person before I make a final decision. I will be down right away."

A few minutes after Nibeaux left his office, someone else entered who definitely had not been invited. It was Haig. He entered nonchalantly, so that he might plead an honest error if he were caught. He had considered sending one of the suppordinates he had let into the little conspiracy: Hamilton, in his judgment the best man on the staff; Ndonga,an intense but not too questioning officer; or even Henna, a subtly stalky woman with a wistful far-off case that came into her eyes rather too often. But, in the end, he had felt himself the most suited to the task.

His gaze settled almost instantly upon the mini-freezer. He unlimbered his weapon, a 28-gauge shotgun capable of automatic fire, but moved closer to see if he could sabotage the freezer by more ordinary means. Just then, a closet opened. Haig whirled, pumping the gun, only to be felled by a blow to the side of the head. He did not see his attacker until he was already on his back. It was Zaratustra, with armor, helmet and crown, plus the shotgun that he now held in his hands.

"This is Nibeaux's trap, isn't it?"

"In all probability. He only told me to watch this office."

"Are you going to report this?"

"I have made no promises."

"What do you want?"

"The location of the other royal egg will be sufficient."

"You realize, Dr. Frankepanic is going to try to kill me if I talk."

Zaratustra brought a foot down on his shoulder. "The choice is quite easy, then. He _might _kill you if you talk, but I _certainly_ will if you do not."

Zagreb, Croatia: 0700 June 22, 2044

Two Croatians (Hrvatskis in their own language) entered the office of the US ambassador. One wore the uniform of a general. The other, while having no obvious identification, was clearly a diplomat. The American rose when three more people followed. They wore the symbols of the armed forces of Bulgaria, Albania and Kosova. "Is this a general offensive?" the ambassador asked wryly.

"No, it is a request for help," said the Hrvat diplomat. "The fact that so many nations have chosen to send representatives should be proof of the urgency of the matter."

"And your president- acting president, as the case may be- has no problem with this request?"

The general spoke: "We are here by his direct order."

There was a moment of tense silence. A year before, Hrvatska had made what was, depending on interpretation, either an attempt to force Serbia to a peace settlement immediately, or a bid to grab several of the region's more controversial pieces of real estate for itself under the pretense of fulfilling a treaty with Kosova. To this end, the Hrvats had built a superweapon from a giant tracked mining machine, an experimental particle accelerator and a "dubiously appropriated" nuclear reactor. (The great adventure in which Princip and the finbacks destroyed the machine must be told another time.) In one of the few firings of the weapon, the Hrvats accidentally knocked out a Lufthansa airliner and an American communications satellite, and this had placed them at odds with the wider world ever since. In the aftermath of a military rout and an international scandal, the nation's president and chief of the armed forces had resigned, and the prime minister had taken his place until a new election could be held. This was the new administration's first spontaneous overture toward the American government.

"You may be seated," the ambassador said.

"We are here," the Hrvat diplomat said, "for a single purpose: the location and destruction of a vehicle code-named `Omega Aleph'."


	21. Inspection

**Inspection**

Omega Aleph: June 23rd, 2044

Ling arrived on a helicopter that was to replace the one destroyed by the bomb. After he unboarded and the engines shut down, the helipad crew began preparing it for storage below deck. He wore a biohazard suit, which concealed his identity. "I am not at liberty to identify myself, but you may call me Charles," he told the scientists who greeted him. "Proof of my authority is in my briefcase, though I may only show it to the commander of the lab."

"That will not be necessary," said Dr. Frankepanic. "Rausch has already confirmed your arrival."

Ling descended an elevator on the corner of the pad. "The first thing I wish to inspect is the second extraterrestrial species encountered. So far, the only report is on the successful use of an extraterrestrial weapon."

"Well, there has been little enough to report. Only a single specimen, apparently a subadult female, was captured, and it was in a coma until 3 weeks ago…"

The lab that held the Huntress was in front of the hangar. The Huntress was confined in a 10X10 m one-way plexiglass enclosure in the center. Items of technology were on display in workstations along the walls: The Huntress's full armor, the Hunter's mask, a selection of edged weapons, the three-barreled laser cannon and a plasma caster. There were also several haphazard-looking devices of human manufacture, clearly designed as replicas of the extraterrestrial devices. These included a 60-cm plasma-casting torus and a stripped-down exoskeleton surrounded by a web of wires and electronic discs that replicated a cloaking device. Ling inspected these with even more interest than the originals. "I understand that you are a behavioral scientist. How was it that you received this assignment?"

"Well, my initial task was simply to figure out how to use the weapons," he said. "To that end, it was more important to understand the alien species' psychology, especially their means of communication, than to understand their technology.

"The first thing we learned about the species, and the key to our swift progress, was that their thought and speech are by all indications much less advanced than their technology. Their spoken language has as little as five hundred words, usually single syllables and with little or no variation in meaning. To express more complex concepts, it appears they simply string words together. For example, we are fairly certain their word for `projectile weapon' translates literally as ` it for killing by throwing'. Their written language is, if anything, even simpler. Those on the weapons are fully comparable to instruction manuals for users who may be illiterate: very short commands, accompanied by a stylized cartoon or hieroglyph. Furthermore, the instructions themselves can be quite absurd. To give an egregious example, there is an inscription around the muzzle of this `caster' that translates as ` Point it away from self!'"

"No more strange than the average warning label," Ling said. "Like one on the US Army's claymore mines… `front toward enemy."

"Perhaps. In any event, this alone tells us something very important about the extraterrestrials' civilization," Frankepanic said. "Their technology can only be regarded as the product of a species very advanced in mental and social development. But it would appear that the intended end users, in such a society, would be its lowest rungs: the blue-collar workers, day laborers, peasants and slaves. Perhaps the species has an asymmetric social structure: A gifted minority, favored by social organization and even by genetics, is responsible for the race's achievements, while the majority are stagnant or degenerate unless helped by their superiors. It is also possible that the species we have seen did not develop the technology they use, but obtained it from another, unknown race through trade, charity or theft."

"That sounds reasonable," Ling said. "But how did you produce your own versions so quickly?"

"After we determined that the instructions and user interfaces were intended for the unsophisticated, we quickly established that the same was true of the technology itself. The designs appear not just simple, but streamlined, presumably to make it as easy as possible to maintain and manufacture. Several inscriptions on the weapons provide diagrams for manufacturing spare parts! We also found that all of the weapons are based on principles which human science has already discussed, at least as theoretical possibilities. Once the principles are recognized, it has been consistently easy to make working copies, markedly inferior only in greater bulk, lower quality of materials, and especially a lack of a compact power supply."

Frankepanic pointed to the forearm piece, which consisted of a disc the size of a fire alarm and a rectangular control panel. "This is the only device we have been unable to make progress with. It is definitely the power source of all the extraterrestrials' technology, and probably uses some form of highly controlled matter-antimatter annihilation. We suspect that it is also a self-destruct device. Several times, we have questioned the subject on the controls. The first of the few things she showed us produced a countdown sequence. Fortunately, we had figured out how to cancel commands ourselves."

Ling turned his attention to the Huntress. She seemed to meet his gaze, and gave a rattling growl. "Can she see us?' he said, sounding more curious than frightened.

"Probably. Her vision is attuned to different spectra. She can see in infrared, but in the spectra detectable to human vision, she appears to be color-blind at best. There is some evidence that she is sensitive to magnetic fields. In any event, she does this to about 2 of every 3 people who approach the glass. But, she will also do it when no one is around. I think she can see only imperfectly."

"I want to see your documentation by the end of the day," Ling said. "Now show me your parasitoid behavior lab. I understand it has been a source of some trouble…"

Frankepanic coughed. "I… don't think that would be wise," he said. "The parasitoids are, of course, not currently active, and the nursery below it is under quarantine."

"What happened in the nursery?" Ling asked sternly.

"A host subject attempted escape. We decided it was best to withdraw and wait for the subject to die."

"I know you are given broad discretion, but I cannot approve leaving a situation like this unresolved. I order that you secure the nursery. Then show me the behavior lab."

Securing the nursery turned out to consist of sending in Zaratustra, then hauling out bodies. Apparently, all but one of the infected pigs had killed each other, and Krnabeg had managed to kill the last. By Frankepanic's order, Zed took Krnabeg alive. He dragged the man out with a broken jaw. One of his hands was so slashed by glass that it was nearly severed, and he had three gunshot wounds to his shoulder and abdomen. He was still fighting, however. His belly bulged with food. "It's surprising that the hosts would kill each other," Frankepanic remarked. "We found that the parasitoids avoid killing hosts. Zaratustra, take Krnabeg and the pigs to the main lab." As Ling departed, he turned to speak to Haig, who looked very worried.

June 24

Nibeaux led Ling on a tour of the main lab. Ling saw blood samples being taken from Krnabeg, and the autopsy of one of the pigs. A parasitoid embryo was removed from the pig and dissected itself. He was shown bodies of parasitoids, and their victims. He was allowed inside the nest, accompanied by Martinez. He even went into Nibeaux's office to look at the royal egg. The freezer and its contents were fine, but the office was not. The door was open. Sophie was missing, the top of her cage burst. Most unwelcome of all, the smothered corpse of Hamilton was on the floor.

.

At the end of the day, he announced his decision. "All of you here have done admirable work under difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, only some of your work is promising enough to warrant further investment. The `hunter' species and associated technologies offers great promise for the development of new technologies in the near future. My superiors approve ongoing research, geared to the production of working combat equipment. The extraterrestrial parasitoids could eventually provide valuable biochemical resources. But they are extremely dangerous, and the threat is compounded by our currently limited knowledge of their behavior and lifecycle. The most prudent course of action at this time is to complete all ongoing experiments, preserve the royal spore, and destroy the rest."


	22. Hunted

**Hunted**

Kosovo disputed zone: 0001 June 25

It was a testament to the strange paths of technological progress that each of the four Balkan republics was able to contribute at least one of the world's most advanced aircraft to the search for Omega Aleph. Croatia had dispatched two specimens of the Kos, an advanced high-altitude spy plane, and had also placed on high alert its small fleet of sea-based missile platforms, widely known as the Platypus. Bulgaria had committed all of its dozen pulse-jet helicopters, probably the most complex operational aircraft in the world. Shiqipteria had deployed attack helicopters, licensed copies of a Russian/Chechen design locally called the Lugat (Vampire), Mach 2 jet fighters and stealth tactical bombers. Even impoverished Kosova had contributed an advanced aircraft, an unclassifiable oddity widely known as the Flying Pig.

The "Flying Pig", which hardly resembled a pig but looked about as improbable in the air, represented a typical case of how such advanced weapons ended up in the world's backwaters. It had been commissioned a decade or so earlier, as a replacement for the US military's tiltrotors. A multinational contractor spent most of the next decade designing the craft. When a production-worthy design was finally ready, the military praised the design and the efforts of several individual designers, pointed out there had been major delays and cost overruns (without admitting that their shifting demands had caused most of them), noted that it would take several more years to train qualified pilots and mechanics, concluded that the existing tiltrotor fleet could be maintained and operated for a fraction of the price, and in summary declined to buy the new craft which they themselves had commissioned. The contractor decided to recoup their expenses by selling small consignments to nations with no tiltrotors at all, and Kosova was among the buyers. That was how a tiny Balkan republic ended up with a squadron exotic craft whose sausage-shaped fuselage was lifted and propelled solely by four barrel-like ducted fans.

Two of the Pigs flew over a series of poljes between two mountain ranges. Polje is usually translated as "field", but the "fields were in fact the bottoms of depressions that could be tens of meters deep- enough for even a target the size of Omega Aleph to hide from any search craft that was not directly overhead or in the polje itself. The Pigs were almost law enough to do the latter, flying at 100 meters above the average level of the polje floors. They were at low speed, which was still faster than an attack helicopter at full speed, with the front two turbines pointed straight down for maximum lift. (The designers had devised a vectored-thrust system to replace tilting, but the original military clients had insisted that one pair of turbines should tilt. The rear pair were fixed horizontally in the twin-boom tail.) A hunting pair of multi-purpose helicopters called Cyranos flew through the polje below, using radar in their large nose pieces to scan for the seismic vibrations of a very large vehicle.

Meanwhile, a few kilometers back, a light appeared in the heavens, and dropped toward the earth...

"We just got a significant reading from behind," a Cyrano's sensor operator reported. "It was more like an impact than a moving vehicle."

"Whatever it was, it's not our target. Ignore i-" Suddenly, there was a sound like a thunder clap, and a rush of air that rocked the Pigs' fuselages and nearly caused a Cyrano to crash. "What in damnation was that?"

"It was a sonic boom, sir..."

"Of course, but from what?"

"I don't know, sir... There was no direct reading on the object. But it looks like it was slowing down."

0035 hours

In another polje a few kilometers away, a Cyrano made the first sighting. A light AA battery blasted the helicopter to pieces within seconds, but there was just enough time for the copter's radio man to broadcast the image. The Cyrano's wreckage had scarcely hit the ground before three more helicopters began an attack run. One was the destroyed Cyrano's partner, sniping through the gap. The other two were the Lugats, shark-like machines with two rotors on a single mast, each bearing twelve anti-tank missiles.

In the storage level, the Flea and the Tick still idled in the converted pig pen. They were watched by Henna, the female security guard. "This is really insulting," the Tick said in Serbo-Croatian. "Either one of us could deal with her, even without armor."

"In combat, yes," said the Flea. "Otherwise, just me." He laughed. The guard glared over her shoulder.

A moment later, there was a muffled rumble, and the lab shook. The Flea said in English: "I say, Holmes, wot was that?"

"Nothing to joke about," the Tick said irritably.

One Lugat lay in a smoking, flattened ruin on the polje floor, its load detonated impotently where it fell. The other was guided by a computer through a weaving, spiraling course while its missiles and guns fired at a single patch of a few square meters in the rear of the hull. It flew so low that only the infantry defenses could fire on it, but even so, the helicopter took mounting damage. The Cyrano followed cautiously behind, blasting away with APFSDS rounds from a 57mm cannon. From nearby came the dull roar of ducted fans.

Within the lab, there was a steady chorus of clangs, made by explosively-formed penetrators and fin-stabilized tungsten slugs punching through multiple plates. There was a muffled roar from elsewhere in the lab. "That was a long-range SAM," Henna said to no one in particular. The lab shook, harder than before. Another SAM launched. Then the whole vehicle shook, and the lights dimmed.. "That was a direct hit from a bomb!" the Flea said, no longer amused.

The remaining Lugat finally succumbed. Small explosive charges blew off the rotors just before the pilot's ejection seat activated, and the fuselage careened onward for a few seconds before it slammed nose-first into the ground. The vengeful Cyrano broke off, having expended most of its ammo. Overhead, a trio of Pigs bombed and weaved while they rained down cluster bombs. Intensive returning fire did little their massive frames and deceptive agility, there was little they could not either avoid or absorb. Most of the 50 kg submunitions landed on the ground, where the shallow soil and hard limestone bedrock magnified the effect of each blast. The closest blasts were enough to make track units jump, and two shed their tracks. Those that hit the vehicle punched into the armor before detonating, thanks to caps and delaying fuses. When they did explode, the plates they passed through bowed out, even flew off in square-meter sheets, while those below shook and buckled. Some of the munitions released shaped-charge jets and explosively-formed slugs. One cluster bomb that missed (intentionally) released thermobaric munitions, which detonated in midair to generate a cloud of fire, shockwaves of air and equal and opposite suction force. The cluster of blasts and the resulting vacuum was enough to rock the mobile lab, the front even more forcefully than the rear, and make the rear section slew to the right. Three more track units lost their treads, two to breakage and the other when the vacuum effect simply sucked it off, and a swath of armor was pulled off like peeling wallpaper. By the time a dozen hits had been scored, one of the Pigs had been forced to crash land, and another had a smoking fan. Finally, the Pigs turned away.

Zagreb, Croatia: 0100 hours

The Kosovar representative stood before a video camera and a blank screen, speaking almost plaintively: "This is Kosova Air Command, hailing Omega Aleph. We know you have suffered extensive damage. We do not wish to destroy you, or to inflict more damage than we have to. But we have the resources to destroy you at will. Do not force us to do so. If you surrender now, all Serb and Montenegrin personnel shall be treated as prisoners of war, but not as war criminals, and all multinationals will be returned to their nations of origin as soon as possible. All materiel and data recovered will be given to UNCOST. If you do not surrender, we will have no choice but-"

Suddenly, a shaking, badly blurred image appeared on the screen. It resolved itself into a close-up, out-of-focus view of a finback's visor and face mask. Then the view pulled back to show the full helmet, which was crowned with rusty steel bars. The Kosovar fell momentarily silent, glancing down at his notes. "If I am not mistaken, I am speaking to Albert Schwartz-Leiber, also known is Zaratustra, designation Zed.

Please relay-"

The helmet was abruptly blocked by Zaratustra's right fist, or rather the closest thing he could make to a fist. Then the screen went blank.

East Kosova: 0115 hours

A trio of Bulgarian helicopters were next to strike. They had lozenge-shaped tailless fuselages, and single rotors with two broad blades topped by a radar dish. They moved at 400 kph, with an eerie, diffuse hissing in place of the usual whirring of helicopter rotors. The sound came from pulse jets, nozzles on the blades that spun the rotors with compressed air in place of a powered mast. Flying in a wedge formation on just the other side of the mountains to the east, they tracked their target with top-mounted radar without exposing themselves.

"Radar lock on Omega Aleph confirmed," said the leader. "Prepare to fire terrain-following missiles. Mark. Three, two-"

Suddenly, something like ball lightning sailed past the helicopter on his left. On the right, a second glowing ball sailed into another helicopter's missile rack. The missiles cooked off catastrophically, completely destroying the craft and damaging the leader's own. Then the helicopter on the left shuddered, and one of its blades sheared in two. For a few moments, it stayed in the air, and might have recovered, if it had not first crashed into the mountain.

The lead pilot and his copilot stared about in shock. Then the copilot shouted. To their left, there seemed for a moment to be a triangular craft, scarcely bigger than a hang glider, circling around the helicopter. But what seemed for a moment to be moonlight off a silvery hull was the next an odd translucent patch in the air, and then nothing at all. The copilot turned to speak. That was when several things happened very quickly. There was loud thud on the hull, a smashing of glass, and a spray of blood. The next thing the pilot knew, air was rushing in through a spider-webbed canopy, and the copilot sitting next to him had a silvery harpoon run through his chest, out the back of his seat and into the cockpit wall. The fractured plexiglass peeled aside. Beyond was a figure more than two meters tall, transparent and crackling with energy. He reached for his sidearm, but before he could get it out of the holster, a half-visible hand was around his neck. His last sensation was a loud pop as his own neck snapped.

At the foot of the western mountains, a squadron of T110s took aim from the far side of a mountain. Each tank had a radar dish on the turret roof, and a cupola with a fully enclosed AGL/MG mount. Behind them, a battery of 22 cm rocket launchers fired first, then the tanks began shooting. The rockets and tank shells reached the target at about the same time. The projectiles broke open in midair, releasing clouds of sadarm submunitions. The Flea and the Tick heard a staccato pattering of metal as the sadarms blew EFPs into the lab. Most of them hid decoys on the roof, which imitated the shape, sound and infrared signatures of prosaic vehicles. The greatest threat the sadarms posed was that they distracted the defense systems from continuing missile launches by helicopters, Pigs and newly-arriving jets.

A few at a time, the tanks and rocket-launcher trucks stopped shooting, pulled out and drove for another spot. By the time half of them had pulled out, rockets and mortars from the lab were coming down. Two rocket launchers were knocked out, and a tank had its cupola blown off. The withdrawal hastened. The tanks were soon taking a steady stream of hits. One was disabled by an EFP that went through its side into the drive train, and another was demolished by a direct hit from a rocket with a shaped-charge warhead. The tanks fired their smoke dischargers en masse, and the last to leave fired "star" shells from their main guns, spreading a canopy of smoke, sparks and chaff overhead. As the last tank pulled out, two rocket launchers, having already reached their detonation, opened fire, sending two dozen rockets at the lab from the northeast. This time, there were not just sadarms, but demolition and shaped-charge warheads. Three tanks were there to join in. The rest of the vehicles drove past the original rally point, leap-frogging straight to the next position- one which would place them almost directly in Omega Aleph's path.

The two rocket launchers at the would-be rallying point left as soon as their rockets were in the air. The three tanks stayed a little longer. One pulled out, and a second followed suit, but the third stayed where it was, without even firing a last shot or two. The commander of the second tank felt sudden concern. After a hail went unanswered, he turned his cupola for a look. In the scope, he saw that the hatch of the other tank's cupola was open. He then watched in horror as a severed head seemed to levitate out of the hatch. Blood splashed across an otherwise invisible figure. Even while he gaped in shock, he activated his guns almost by reflex. Just as he drew a bead on the transparent figure, something flashed on its shoulder. Then a plasma bolt hit, and his cupola exploded.

The commander was killed instantly. The gunner was badly burned, and if there had been a shell in the main gun, it would probably have gone off and destroyed the entire tank. The autoloader automatically emptied itself, pitching four ready-to-fire rounds out through the nose before they could cook off. The driver lost control, and the tank got caught in a crevasse. The gunner threw a switch to bring more shells from the racks in the tank hull, loaded one into the chamber, and traversed the turret in search of the threat. He saw a blood-red figure 30 meters away and closing. He switched to the coaxial 35 mm gun. Before he could fire a shot, a translucent harpoon flew through the air and down the muzzle of the main gun. Then the shell in the chamber went off, and what was left of the turret flew 14 meters into the air.

0230 hours

"You know something I heard about the armor on this place?" the Flea said. "The plates are perforated, actually full of little holes. Apparently, it actually works better."

"So?" said the Tick.

"Well, just think about it: If holes make armor better, then those poor Shqips out there are just toughening this place up!"

In the conning tower, an assembly of Nibeaux, Frankepanic and Ling was less mirthful. "Rausch has assured us that air support is on the way," Nibeaux said.

"If air support were available," Ling countered, "they would not have come this close to begin with. We must make preparations to abandon the facility."

"We can't depend on Rausch," Frankepanic said, "but we can still save ourselves- if we utilize our extraterrestrial assets."

"Very well, I will approve it as a contingency," Ling said. "Make preparations. But nothing is to be deployed unless I am convinced there is no other alternative."

Moments later, Henna departed from the finbacks' cell, to be replaced by Ndoka. "He's bigger," the Flea said, "but he's not prettier."

Zaratustra's voice boomed down: "Full speed ahead! All countermeasures and infantry suppression fire to the front! `Come ruin, come wrack, at least we'll die with armor on our backs!' Well, I will." A chuckle ended the broadcast.

"Is he actually in control?" Ling said.

"He is rightfully third in the chain of command," Nibeaux said. "And in any event, if he wants to give orders, how many people are going to try and stop him?"

Tanks, rocket launchers and towed artillery blasted away at Omega Aleph as the giant vehicle rolled over the rim of a basin (called a dolina). The mobile lab was taking heavy damage, but inflicting a steady toll on the artillery. Damage to the tracks had reduced its speed to only 25 km per hour. Ten track units had lost their treads. Six of them were in the rear section, four of them were on the left and one of those had had half the road wheels blown off as well. This made the rear section slew side to side. Even so, it advanced inexorably. Boulders were ground into chalky dust. Air-dropped anti-tank mines merely clanged like cymbals against massive two-meter road wheels. A fifty kilogram demolition shell crashed through a vision block in the top level of the conning tower. Before the regular crew could regain their senses, Zaratustra kicked it back out.

The first line of cannon began to retreat. Pigs dive-bombed Omega Aleph from both directions, using the vectored thrusters of already vertical front fans to brake while rising rapidly. But the air defenses were more disciplined and determined. Autocannons aimed for the fans, and the 10 cm cannon tracked ahead to inflict heavy shrapnel damage and one direct hit that punched through one side of a fuselage and out the other. The Pigs quickly fell back. One especially determined craft swooped down to pummel the conning tower with a 73 mm cannon. Then Zaratustra fired an armor-piercing grenade through the hole in the wall. A rear fan exploded, taking a piece of the tail with it, and the craft tumbled out of control and crashed.

The Pigs' last resort was to drop several thermobaric munitions in the center of the dolina. The suction force was enough to lift the rear section off the ground, but the front section outpulled the vacuum in a final lunge for freedom. A hapless tank, hung up in a crevasse, fired shot after shot, hitting tracks, pneumatic shafts of the suspension and a section of underbelly that hung beyond the front tracks. Any damage done was nowhere near enough. The driver and commander bailed out, but the gunner stayed at his post, firing two more shots into Omega Aleph's protruding chin before the tank was flattened like dough under a rolling pin. "It seems they forgot an important rule of driver's etiquette," Zaratustra said. _"In matters of right-of-way, mass is 99.9 percent of the law."_

Zagreb, Croatia: 0300 hours

"As far as my country is concerned, it is over," the Kosovar commander announced. "We have no effective, operational aircraft left to oppose Omega Aleph. Our ground forces are withdrawing with 60% losses."

"My forces are no better off," the Shqipterian general said. "Our Lugat unit has been operationally annihilated, and our remaining strike jets are being forced to withdraw for refueling. Our bombers are still available, but it would be a breach of procedure to deploy them without fighter support."

"We have one more option," the Hrvat general said. "_Gotterdamerung._"

Dalmatia (autonomous province of Croatia): 0305 hours, June 25

Near the shores of the Balkans' main (if not only) maritime area, one of the largest and strangest aircraft ever built floated just above the Adriatic Sea. Its official name was Sea-Based Lifting-Body Ground-Effect Launch Platform, and its most common colloquial name was the Platypus. It was more than 70 meters long, up to 30 m wide, and very flat. It had no wings to speak of, apart from curling projections toward the rear of the fuselage. At its midline, an array of missiles of various sizes lay level with the surface. It floated in the water on broad floats under what passed for wings. Now, it rose above the water, supported by air blown downward from turbines in the fuselage and trapped between the fuselage and the water. The two largest missiles rose to the vertical, while the craft turned to aim. Then one fired into the air, in an arc toward Kosova.

Eastern Kosova

Only mountains now stood between Omega Aleph and undisputed Serb territory. The mountains to the west zagged to the right to form a northern boundary to the network of poljes, but a pass was directly ahead. A trio of Serb jets flew overhead, drawing cheers from the tower crew. Then Zaratustra shouted, "Hard right!"

The mobile lab swerved into a side valley, banging the rear section against the valley wall. "What in Chaos are you doing?" Frankepanic shouted.

Zaratustra only stared out the hole in the wall. He began a chant, that rose from a whisper to a loud shout:

_"When the body's broken and strength is gone,_

_When every round is spent but one_

_While the mind's still keen and will unbowed_

_Then raise your fist up high_

_And curse all gods and die!"_

Then he raised his obscene right fist, just as a light like the sun rose in the west.


	23. Aftermath

**Aftermath**

It was never established what kind of missiles the Hrvats fired, but their effects were well-documented enough. The missiles detonated just above the ground, a second or so apart, with flashes that would have blinded anyone who had looked at them with unprotected eyes. The light was followed by an advancing wall of flame, which was not readily visible because it was preceded by thick clouds of dust. The dust, faintly luminous by the flames behind and lightning bolts within, advanced with terrific speed, channeled by the steep walls of the poljes. Everyone with electronic communications gear for hundreds of kilometers heard a terrible screech of interference, accompanied at closer ranges by the flickering or outright failure of electronics. But there was no sound for anyone who saw the approaching wall of dust and flame, not only because it moved significantly faster than sound but because the air was being pulled into the firestorm. For those who did not see the missiles come down, there was no warning before the shockwave hit.

The ground shock threw the mobile lab in the air, and the airborne blast blew it forward. The rear came down first, only to bounce back into the air, and did the same twice more before going into a skid. On the final landing, several massive pneumatic columns in the suspension broke, making the rear section list back and to the left. Airborne rocks of all sizes pummeled the vehicle; the largest of them bounced along underneath the lab, banging against its underbelly. When the vehicle finally came to a stop, the damage was only compounded, and rocks immediately began piling up around it.

0310 hours

In front of the egg storage area, Maria DiMaccia lay unconscious. Static flickered on a spiderwebbed viewscreen. Beyond a thick observation window, just enough light shown to reveal the outline of six glass-doored freezers. One was broken, another had been emptied. Of the remaining freezers, one held three eggs, while the remaining three had their full capacity of a dozen eggs each. The glass of the three-quarters empty freezer had been broken by a fallen lamp. All three eggs began to open simultaneously...

0320 hours

The Flea and the Tick knew the battle had taken a turn when alarms sounded and Ndoka left abruptly. They had some idea what might happen when the lights flickered and the alarms hiccuped. But they had no warning before the blast wave hit. To the Flea and the Tick, all of this was perceptible only as a nightmare of flying, falling, crashing and flying again, accompanied by a symphony of loud and terrible noises in which only their own cries and those of the pigs could be readily identified. The Tick regained consciousness leaning against the plexiglass barrier, which had fractured and bowed out on being hit at significant velocity by his rear end. The Flea was sprawled face-down on the floor, unconscious but groaning. There was a grunt behind him. He turned his head to see a pig in the corridor. It looked up at him and made a grunt that sounded almost like a chuckle, then wandered down the corridor. Hooves clicked as more pigs moved in all directions, mainly down the slope of the tilted deck.

The Tick shook the Flea awake. At his partner's semi-intelligible questioning, he answered, "We're alone, and the glass is busted. So help me break it down, before I use your thick head as a battering ram."

The Flea retorted sourly, "Looks like you could do better with your own fat-"

0325 hours

Within the main lab, significant bomb damage had been done, including a penetration of the right wall of the upper story. Shrapnel had broken open one of the sections, killing two scientists who had been dissecting a defunct ectoparasitoid. In another room, whose door had been knocked ajar, a shambling figure peered out and spoke with an inhuman rasp: "I'm hungry..."

0330

The blast would probably have killed everyone in the conning tower, if Zaratustra and his armor had not absorbed the fire and dust that came in through the hole in the tower wall. As it was, everyone else in the main control room had been killed, and Zaratustra had been blasted into the next room, where Nibeaux, Frankepanic and Ling had been conferring. Now all four lay unconscious in one heap.

Ling awoke first. The first thing he did was open his briefcase and take out his pistol. Then Frankepanic groaned. He shut the briefcase and went to the doctor, who had a wound on his forehead. Setting down the gun, he grabbed a first aid kit. "Are you all right?" he said.

He would have been prepared enough to stop an attack if it had come from the man's hands. But he was paying no attention to Frankepanic's legs, which appeared to be pinned by a toppled chair. Even so, he drew back the moment Frankepanic's leg shot out, and a kick aimed at his face caught him in the chest instead. He stretched his arm out to grab his gun even as he fell, but hit his head with stunning force against the wall. He recovered to find himself looking down the barrel of his own gun. He tensed subtly in preparation for a strike, but then Haig and Ndoka came in. His shoulders loosened.

"A good decision, Inspector `Charles'," Frankepanic said. "As long as you abide by it, you have nothing to fear from us. My colleague is another matter." While the guards covered Ling, he stalked over to Nibeaux, who was just beginning to regain consciousness. "All right, you smug bastard- what did you do with my royal egg?"

Nibeaux lift himself on hand and knees, and raised his head to lock eyes with Frankepanic. His gaze was as cold and calculating as ever. "So... you were the one who blew up the copter. And you did it just to cover up another crime: the theft of a royal egg. Altogether, worthy of respect."

Frankepanic kicked him in the face. "Is that so? Then I guess respect wasn't enough to stop your damn plots. It wasn't enough for you to take control of one royal egg. You had to take mine too! Where is it? Or did you destroy it to make yours more valuable?"

"I would have considered it," Nibeaux said, "but I assure you, I had no knowledge that you had `appropriated' a royal egg. Someone else must have taken it..."

All eyes shifted to Zaratustra, who finally roused with a rasping grunt. "Zaratustra!" Nibeaux said sternly.

"I know the drill," Zaratustra said. "No, I did not take the royal egg. But I was aware of the theft and its original hiding place."

"How??" Frankepanic said. Haig let out a choked cough. Zed was silent.

Nibeaux said, "Why did you not report it immediately?"

Zed promptly answered the second question: "Because, I wished to see who would try to steal it next."

"And did you see someone steal it?"

"Yes. It was Hamilton. And to answer the next question, he hid it in an elevator. The one in the nest."

0335

Ten guards gathered outside the murderhole. They quickly established the situation: The connections between the front and rear had been severed, including the power. Only batteries and backup generators remained to keep the labs running. Several systems had been shut down from battle damage or simple lack of powered, and these included the cameras in the nest- and the elevator. The status of the lab was unknown, apart from the fact that one section had depressurized.

The nominal leader of the assembly, named Bresljo, went into a speech. "We've all known for a long time which way this war is going. And, we all know winners pay better than losers. And if you really have the instincts for this business, then surely you can all see that it's long past time to take what we can and get out.

"Hamilton figured that out, and he found a way to get out and get rich too. He let me in on it, just like I'm letting you in on it now. There are people out there who will pay millions for those crab eggs, and he got hold of an egg that will hatch into a queen. He had connections with people who were offering 10 million euros for it." This was not true: The offer had been for 100 million. "And before the witch doctor's snake got him, he told me where he hid it," Breslo said with a grin. This was not entirely true, either: Hamilton had, in fact, disclosed this information while begging his accomplice for help in escaping the snake. "He hid it the last place anyone would look: in the nest itself."

The other guards' faces went from eager to wary. "Even that crazy finback with the crown wouldn't go in there," said a guard named Smith. "Why should we?"

"Well, I can't blame you for being concerned," Bresljo said. "But I have a way to get that egg out without any of us even setting foot in the nest..."

0340

After ten minutes spent escaping and ten more of exploring, the escaped finbacks made an exciting discovery: "Zed's spare parts!!"

There were two assembled base chassis, one of which was missing the arm servos. The Flea took the less complete one, and added a non-standard claw arm. There were two spare inner helmets, a complete outer helmet with face mask missing, and a second outer helmet with only the cap assembled. Again, the Flea took the less complete specimen. There were few armor panels available. They had to settle for the outer padding and 15 mm of armor of the breast plates, the plates for the fronts of their thighs and their outer calves, a forearm shield with attached grenade launcher for the Tick, and a ceramic panel turned guardbrace for the Flea.

"Don't worry," said the Flea. "Like I always say, lighter is better."

"Yeah, but like I always say, you're a brain-dead, adrenaline-crazed lunatic."

There were squeals of panic, and a clattering of hooves as pigs ran by in panic-stricken flight. Their hooves had poor traction on the smooth floors, and one slipped and slid back down the sloping deck. It was promptly caught and wrapped up by Sophie the snake. As the pig squealed in its final agonies, the Tick inspected several boxes of grenades. "Smoke... flash-bangs... just one lousy flechette canister... oh, and three of those nice bola shells. It's marginally better than nothing."

By the time they emerged, the squealing had stopped. The pig had been swallowed up to the shoulders, but things did not look right with the snake. Its distended jaw stuck out to one side, as if the pig had gone in not quite the right way. "I think the snake's choking," the Flea said.

"Well, what are we gonna do, give it the Heimlich? Let's go..."

As they approached a stairway that would take them up to the labs, two guards jumped into their paths, brandishing shotguns. "Stop!" they shouted.

"Screw yourselves," said the Tick. The finbacks pushed through without slowing; the Flea knocked one out with a lazy swing of his guardbrace. The other fired a 12-gauge grenade into the back of the Tick's helmet. The Tick whirled around and cut his attacker in two with a bola shell. He spun back around, ready to shoot others he could hear approaching. The Flea grabbed his arm with a big pincer, forcing the wrist launcher down.

Three figures stood before them. One was Bresljo, holding a 9.67 mm rifle. The other two were a burly but short guard, and Maria, whom he held in a choke hold with a pistol to her head. "If you truly wish to avoid further, unnecessary bloodshed," Bresljo said, "then all you need to do is do for us a small favor..."


	24. Awakenings

**Awakenings**

0400 hours

A pair of Cyranos, configured for advanced reconnaissance rather than combat, flew over the blasted debris of the blast that had overtaken Omega Aleph. Soil had been blasted away, and limestone shattered or fused to marble. Only the deepest poljes remained discrete from the general mass of debris. With batteries of sophisticated sensors, the helicopters searched for anything that might be wreckage mixed with the rock.

So far, the only things discovered had been two crashed Serb jets, an assortment of Shiptar wrecks, and the occasional armor panel or broken track from Omega Aleph. The lead copter had also sighted and been sighted by a single Serb jet, apparently damaged, which had turned away rather than attack. Now, the helicopters were approaching the pass that Omega Aleph had been making for. At any moment, they might have sighted the battered hull or lonesome conning tower. But something else attracted their attention first.

One pilot witnessed a flash and a plume of dust. Circling, he saw a pile of boulders, several of which glowed with heat, in front of a half-buried cave. "There's a metallic object... too small to be a wreck... Can't identify composition, but it must be an advanced aerospace alloy. Wait! It's moving!"

The Hunter peered from his refuge, assessing the threat. He could identify three weapons, a heavy machine gun, a medium machine gun and an automatic grenade launcher. It also had sensors that might conceivably detect him. It was enough to be a serious threat, and lawful Game. However, he could see that the armament was small compared to that of other helicopters; conspicuously absent were the 57 mm autocannon and racks of missiles that graced its brothers. Game or no, it was not on a mission to attack. He readied his caster, but waited for hostile action.

"This is weird... The scope shows the signature right there, but I don't see anything. Could it be a _Zot_?"

"A gremlin is more like it... Even _zote_ couldn't have survived the blast. Let's get on with the sweep. There's a cul de sac just a klik away we ought to check out."

The hunter clicked his upper mandibles as the helicopter turned away. He did not wish to kill these jag, but it would not do to have them (let alone those they might summon) underfoot while he made the final approach. He selected a special setting on the caster and aimed ahead and to the right of a copter.

What looked like ball lightning flew by the Cyrano, to disappear with a brilliant flash and a loud boom. The helicopter shuddered from a shock wave, and continued to tremble afterward. "We have massive sensor and avionics failure! We can stay in the air, but we'll be flying blind!"

"Turn back, and follow my tail beacon. This mission is scrubbed."

The Hunter chuckled. But he wondered as he did whether he might, somewhere on the track of millennia, have strayed from the spirit of the Law.

Meanwhile, within the egg storage area, an ectoparasitoid crawled out of the hole in the broken glass. A second followed, and a third. The first of the creatures slowly spread a set of translucent wings.

Outside, a man approached, glancing furtively about. His name, if it matters, was Gerig. He was one of the guards who had followed Bresljo. He was armed, of course, with a 6 mm carbine. He did not consider what he was about to do betrayal. But, he was not completely sure Bresljo's plan would work, and the eggs still in storage would surely make him rich, and in any event, neither he nor Bresljo himself had said anything about "bonuses" that might be found along the way. He took off his armored gas mask to better see the keys on which he tapped a filched access code. The door opened, and he stepped inside.

He paused when he saw the breeched freezer, and when he spotted one of the ectoparasitoids (guards had been calling them suckers) spreading its wings, hefired instinctively. He damaged a wing and blew off a leg. The maimed sucker ran up the front of a freezer, only to be caught dead center by a second burst. It fell to the floor in a spray of acid, and a shower of sparks from a damaged electronic lock. Only then did he realize the freezer was full of eggs. There was a loud thump from inside, then another, than from two at once. He glimpsed a sucker that slammed into the door with force enough to knock the door slightly ajar and put cracks in the glass, which was already fractured by a carbine hit. A couple legs poked through the crack in the door, pushing it wider but not enough for the sucker to exit.

Gerig backed away in stunned terror. He heard a whir of wings, and turned to see a second winged sucker fly out the open door. He started to yell, but his cry was cut short by a sucker that swung down from above and instantly latched onto his face. He staggered and fell, and in the process let fly with his carbine. The spray of bullets raked across the other two full freezers. Some eggs and suckers were hit, but far more damage was done to the doors, including two direct hits to a lock. Gerig hit the floor with gun still firing. His last five or so shots hit an overhead lamp, which exploded in sparks before swinging down to cave in a bullet-riddled pane of plexiglass. Gerig's last sensation before blacking out was the sound of a door coming open.

Wings fluttered and pigs squealed in terror as the flying ectoparasitoids dispersed through the storage area. One pig after another fell with a muffled squeal as a sucker latched on. As the noise moved away, another sound could be heard: a moist sliding sound. The source was the dead snake and her half-swallowed final meal. The dead pig was sliding back out of the snake's throat. The snake's body swelled like an inflating balloon, and finally split. From the gore of the snake's carcass rose the elongate, gray form of a parasitoid- an ophoid. It continued to swell, until its length and girth were half again those of its host. It raised its head and shrieked. Its jaws extended along with its proboscis, swinging side to side independent of the rest of its head. Then the 4 m creature sped away, vanishing into a labyrinth of stacked boxes.

The scream of the newborn ophoid could be heard by human ears for tens of meters. It must have been far more audible to the other parasitoids, and perhaps it was what finally awakened them.

In the main lab, in a room where an infected pig had been partially dissected, a resinous cocoon still in place next to the pig's liver split open. Out came a miniature but fully formed suinoid. Within a freezer in the next room, a suinoid burst out of another carcass. Both screamed at nearly the same time. The one in the freezer began mewling when it found itself trapped. Within scarcely a minute, there came a thumping at the door. After a dozen furious blows, the door came open, and Krnabeg shambled in with an axe. He raised the axe at the newborn, which responded with a trilling whine. He started to swing, but stopped, and shook his head as if confused. Finally, he went into the next room and took the axe to the freezer where the other suinoid was trapped.

In the behavior lab, a thumbing came from one of the freezers. The solid metal door bowed out under heavy blows, then was penetrated by a thrusting tail. A skeletal hand thrust out. The exoskeleton had turned a milky white with slight translucency. As the creature pushed its hand into the warm air, the exoskeleton cracked, revealing a new, light gray shell beneath. The hand flexed and made a fist. Large pieces of the old skeleton fell away, while the new one grew. Cracks spread down the arm. From the tips of the fingers sprouted new claws, like raptorial talons, and then the hand tore out the lock with one swipe.

In the nest, one parasitoid after another stirred with a crackling of its exoskeleton.

In Dr. Nibeaux's office, a patter of small, shelled feet came from the freezer.


	25. Omnes contra omnium

_**Omnes contra omnium**_

_...The state of men without civil society (which state may be called the state of nature) is nothing but a war of all against all; and that in that war, all have a right to all things._

Thomas Hobbes

0430 hours

Rausch's distorted image shown on the screen. "I'm very sorry, but immediate reinforcements are out of the question," he said. "The attack upon you is being supported by a general offensive. It appears that, instead of consolidating their recent gains in the north, the Kosovars are putting all of their available troops into an eastward advance, even where it means leaving other areas unsecured. Meanwhile, Shqipteria is moving against our Prokletije garrisons, threatening Omega Facility itself, and we have credible intelligence that the Bosniak separatists are ready to revolt if enough of our troops are diverted elsewhere."

"Listen to what I am saying," Frankepanic said. "Omega Aleph is immobile and covered by millions of tons of rock. The elevator to the launch pad is blocked . We don't know at this point if there is anyone left alive in the lab itself. Thousands of Shqiptars could arrive at any minute!"

"I understand, and I will do my best," Rausch said. "But the earliest that I can send relief worthy of the name is 42 hours from now. That is all. Omega out."

Frankepanic turned from the blank screen and smiled. "Well, then," he said. "It would seem that we have Omega Aleph to ourselves for almost two days. What might we not get done in that time?"

Nibeaux glared at Zaratustra. "Are you by any chance going to do anything about this, sergeant?"

Zaratustra shrugged. "Why would I? Dr. Frankepanic is formally in command, and he has done nothing to harm me. In any event, the operational life span of Omega Aleph is clearly at an end, and so is my duty."

Frankepanic spoke in German: "Listen, Zaratustra. I and others like me would like your help. I will not insult you by offering you money. We know you are too pure to be moved by such things. But I think you will find that, in less tangible ways, our interests are yours. You were once of the True Party. Your line was betrayed, even by the leadership of the Church, and only you remain alive and free. But there are many in the Church who now see that your people were in the right. We are ready to break from the false leaders who betrayed you, and prepare the cleansing fire that will purge the world of the _untermenschen_. Will you honor us by your help- even your leadership?"

After long moments of silence, Zaratustra shook his head. "When I was a little younger, I was ready to die for such a cause. But now I believe it is vain: The things which separate _ubermensch_ and _untermensch _are not enough to save one and destroy the other. I think that, if the test were forced, the _ubermensch_ would only die grandly, while the _untermensch _would live on more contemptibly than before. I now see little purpose in it either way. The only fire that concerns me now is that which would burn my soul without destroying it."

"Whether you help us or not, is there any help we may give you?"

"Only give me my helmet, and let me depart unhindered."

"Very well. Go with good fortune."

After Zaratustra departed, Nibeaux said, "Now what?"

"Now we go to your office, to retrieve one royal egg- the egg from which the cleansing fire shall come!"

0445 hours

Bresljo's mutineers took the lower level of the lab with swiftness and stealth. Most of the staff were easily lured out, and then cowed into submission at the sight of the guards' weapons. When this did not suffice, a few shots from an ex-Phillippine Ranger's silenced submachine gun resolved the problem. A single casualty occurred in the main sweep, when one lab supervisor took down a mutineer with a stubby .44 before being dispatched. Two more were lost in a final assault on a control center where two lab supervisors and a loyal guard had locked themselves in. But the ranks were more than replenished by seven guards and four lab supervisors who freely joined the mutineers.

The Flea and the Tick arrived while the score of hostages were being in the main corridor. The hostages stared with varying combinations of shock, disbelief and contempt at these invincible warriors who had clearly either allowed themselves to be captured or actually joined the mutiny.

Bresljo put his rifle to Maria's throat. "Here's the deal," he said. "We don't want to kill any more people than we have to. So, if all of you will just be quiet and hold still, no one will get hurt. What we're going to do now is open the murderhole and retrieve an item of interest. Meanwhile, I and seven of my men are going to take Ms. DiMaccia and four others upstairs, while the rest of you go into workroom E. And you finbacks, behave."

As mutineers and hostages split up, one of the mutineers said to another, "Where were you, Gerig?"

The closest thing to a reply was, "I'm hunggrry."

A terrified hostage was forced to unseal the nest. The hostage and one guard remained in the murderhole, while the exit was sealed behind them. A single bomb hit had caused the elevator to fall to the bottom of the shaft. A snapped cable was tied up for the finbacks to climb down, and for pulling the egg canister up. The Flea simply jumped down, inflicting more damage on the elevator's already crumpled roof, and the Tick slid down the cable to land with scarcely less force. They both stomped at the same time to knock out a ceiling panel, and dropped inside.

"According to the story the Polack gave us, the egg is hidden in some piping under the elevator floor," the Tick said. "He would have had to pry up a floor panel, and then do a little cutting to clear a space."

"Here's one that looks like it was opened recently," the Flea said. "Look, there's a dent from a pry bar." He extended a set of climbing claws and used his forefinger to peel away the plate. They looked down, then looked at each other.

"Did you find it?" the guard shouted.

After some muttering in Serbo-Croatian, the Tick answered: "Yes."

"Then tie the cable around it."

"O-kay. You can pull it up now."

"I'm not pulling it up, the hostage is."

A metal canister was lifted up to the light of the open door. Then the door closed.

Smith, whom Bresljo had left in charge of the lower lab, waited with four other men outside the murderhole. Two others guarded the hostages in the workroom. Smith opened the murderhole just long enough for the canister to be passed through. He held it up for examination, and the men gathered round. The two guards down the hall turned their heads to look. "Wait a minute. This is way too small..." Smith said with a frown. He ought, of course, to have hurled it away at once. But he held onto it for long seconds, simply trying to satisfy his own curiosity about what it was. As he would realize momentarily, it was a rolled-up metal floor panel stuffed with concussion grenades.

By a fluke of ballistics, Smith was hurled down the corridor to land unharmed, while the mutineer on his right was seriously injured and the one on the left had his head blown off. The other two, having started to back away before the detonation, were knocked off their feet. Of the pair down the hall, one rushed forward. The other pitched quietly forward with a bullet in the base of his skull. Lewontin stepped out of the workroom, holding a small, ovoid handgun. "All right, everyone, time for you to surrender," she said.

The Flea and the Tick cheered at the sound of the explosion. "With any luck whatsoever, that gives the witch her chance to get herself and the other hostages out," the Tick said. "Then they can pull us out."

"About luck..." the Flea said. "I think we want whatever there is down here with us." He shown a lamp into the chamber. The suinoids were crowded around the cage, grinning.

0450

Frankepanic, Haig and Nibeaux went to the doctor's office together. "Nibeaux, you put in the combination. Then Haig opens the door." Below, there was a sound of shots. "What on Earth?!" Haig tried in vain to contact his men, while Nibeaux punched in a combination. Frankepanic had to shout at Haig before he opened the door. Before the door was opened more than a crack, the royal ectoparasitoid burst out. The swinging door knocked Nibeaux aside, and the creature hit Haig in the chest with enough force to knock him off his feet. As he toppled, the ectoparasitoid's legs wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and its tail thrust into his back. He started to scream, but the tightening grip and anesthetic sting quickly stifled his cries. The tail throbbed as three embryos were pumped into its victim's chest cavity.

The ectoparasitoid withdrew its tail. Haig remained immobile, except for the occasional twitch. The creature reared up on two of its five pairs of legs and unfurled its wings. A tiny head swiveled back and forth, scanning with a sensory melon and lashing the air with a proboscis. "It's impregnated a victim," Nibeaux said. "Now it's ready to move on. But first, I expect it's going to want a meal..."

"If it goes for me, I can kill it," Frankepanic said. "If it goes for you, well then, that's just less work for me."

At that moment, the door burst open at the blast of a shotgun grenade. A mutineer rushed in with shotgun raised. He started to bellow a command, but only got to "Ha-!" before the leaping ectoparasitoid buried its proboscis in his heart. His gun went off twice as he fell, and Frankepanic ducked two wild blasts in his general direction. That was when Nibeaux struck. While the royal ectoparasitoid loudly slurped its victim's liquefying innards, the two scientists exchanged a short but furious series of blows.

A second mutineer peered inside as the ectoparasitoid was finishing its meal. The creature raised its proboscis and spewed an arcing stream of acid and undigested food. Whether it was acting in self-defense, or simply lightening itself in preparation for flight, made no difference to the mutineer. He staggered back, his chemical resistant clothing and mask only slowing the burning acid down enough to prolong his agony. The ectoparasitoid started to run, lurching at first but quickly gaining speed, until it was bounding along with the help of its flapping wings. Mutineers and hostages only shouted and screamed and tried to get out of its way. A scream announced that it had stung again, but the sound was cut short by a gunshot.

Bresljo came into the office to find Nibeaux standing over Frankepanic with Ling's machine pistol in hand. "Drop it," he said. Nibeaux took one appraising look at him, and then dropped the gun with a snarl.

"Thank you," Frankepanic said as he reached for the gun.

Bresljo casually shifted his aim to him. "None of that. What I need is for both of you to carry him."

0453

In the lab below, nearly on the other side of the rear hull, Martinez waited in the lab where she had been studying two live ectoparasitoids with an NBR scope. She heard shouts, screams, a few shots, and once, the mechanical clicking of a silenced firearm, growing steadily nearer. She had no trouble figuring out what was happening. The mutineers had stopped taking hostages and recruits, and were now gunning people down as they came across them.

She drew her sidearm, the Flea's enormous 12.76 revolver. From the hall, she heard a voice say, "Come out! Everything's all right now!" Someone slid a door open, and there was a stifled cry followed by a clicking sound. Moments later, the call was repeated right outside her door. Swinging the NBR to bear on its overhead mechanical arm, she scanned the other side of the wall. The speaker was outside the door. To one side was a man with a silenced pistol. Across the hall, another pair was trying to force open a door. The door was nearly identical to an airplane door, and the fact that it would not open meant that the section on the other side had breached, releasing an artificially pressurized atmosphere. A little ways down the corridor, a man with unusually heavy body armor stood with a silenced SMG. She guessed, rightly, that he was the ex-Ranger

She propped the pistol up with an integral bipod (only an exotrooper would dare to fire it like a conventional handgun) and fired three shots through the walls. The first was aimed at the Ranger, who preternaturally dodged. The projectile was a tiny course-corrected rocket, but even it could not catch the ranger as he leaped to one side and dived to the floor. Her second shot caught the man with the pistol in the head and exploded, blasting his face apart. The third hit the man at the door in the chest and knocked him out of his shoes. The ranger fired a grenade that knocked the door ajar, and the other two mutineers rushed in. She hit one, but then a concussion grenade flung her back.

The mutineer at the door sprayed the room with an automatic shotgun. When the Ranger arrived, they went in together, only to lurch back at the sight of a maimed sucker. The one with the shotgun blasted it, only to topple with acid spatter on his leg. The Ranger was alert enough to keep his eyes on the room. Martinez fired with a scream, and the shot hit the ranger in the belly. The rocket motor separated, and stayed in his belly while the rest of the projectile exited. He fell with smoke, flame and steaming gore pouring from his wound and from under his face mask.

Martinez dropped the gun. She had fired her last shot without a rest for the bipod, and there was no chance of firing any more. Her wrist was severely dislocated, at a minimum, and she would be lucky if there were no bones broken

Outside, there was a sound of beating wings. The remaining mutineer screamed. She looked outside to see the royal ectoparasitoid in flight, its three-meter wigs nearly spanning the corridor. The mutineer fired his shotgun, but the steel buckshot could not penetrate its shell. The ectoparasitoid dropped to the floor, more disoriented than injured, but started running as soon as its feet touched the ground. The mutineer used his last shot on himself.

The ectoparasitoid began beating its wings for another running takeoff, but as it passed Martinez, it turned its tiny head and skittered to a halt. It folded its wings and prepared for a bound. Martinez did the only thing she could do: Using a remote, she pointed the NBR device directly at the creature and raised the power to maximum. It screeched, reared back, and finally ran into the wall and fell on its back. Before it could right itself, Martinez lunged out of the door and crushed its head with a fire axe. Shorn of what little brain it had, the creature still writhed furiously, and when its lashing tail stuck in the Ranger's body, it began pumping embryos into the dead flesh. Martinez staggered out the door and ran for the exit.

Moments later, the door across the corridor flew open after three tremendous blows. Krnabeg, with an axe held loosely in his hand, stared at the carnage. The two young suinoids looked at the dead royal ectoparasitoid and hissed.

0455

In one of the gaps in the hillocks of rock piled around Omega Aleph, two track units could be seen. Seemingly wedged between the tracks was a hatch, in fact (if one got the scale of it) a full-sized door. From inside, there was a series of loud taps. Then, with a loud whoosh followed by a resounding clang, the door flew open, releasing a cloud of white smoke. Zaratustra stood in the doorway, with wisps of white phosphorous still issuing from his freshly fired gas spike. He looked down, as if debating whether to climb down the ladder or simply jump the two meters to the ground. He did, indeed, bend his knees as if preparing to jump Then he paused, and after a moment turned his head as if heeding a voice no others could hear. He stared down for long moments, and finally bent his knees again. But, he paused yet again, as if listening _for_ a voice. He did not turn his head this time. Even so, after this final pause, he banged his gas spike against the door frame and disappeared back into the darkness.

Just a little later, the lingering smoke was disturbed as an otherwise invisible form climbed up the ladder.


	26. Breakout

**Break-out**

0455

The last guard on his feet tried to draw a handgun on Lewontin. She felled him with a three-shot burst before his gun cleared the holster. Her weapon, an odd type of handgun that combined an automatic clip with a three-chambered revolving cylinder, kicked out three triangular casings. She promptly advanced on Smith, who was just sitting up, with gun raised. "Hands up!" she said. "Throw away your weapon! I'm authorized to kill you at any time, but command would prefer it if I ask you a few questions first."

Before Smith could definitely comply or disobey, someone grabbed her from behind. It was the injured man- Gherig. "I'm hungry," he said. He bit her on the neck, or tried to; the blast had damaged his jaw and cheek muscles severely. She put the gun to his head and fired, taking out an eye and a chunk of his temple, but he continued to bite and cling. Smith snatched for his own gun. She shot him, but the round went off mark to lodge in his shoulder instead of his heart. Then she and Gherig went down together. She managed to throw him over her shoulder, and fired a fully automatic burst into his torso. A loop of intestine hung from a tear in his belly, but still he rose. It took three bursts to his head to bring him down. As he died, a worm-like fetal parasitoid erupted from his shattered chest and lunged for her ankle. She beheaded it with a short burst. Her clip ejected, and Smith reached for his gun with his uninjured arm. She shot him in the forehead with the last round in the cylinder.

She whirled around, ready for a move by one or both of the last two mutineers. But one was still unconscious, and the other was being covered by a hostage with his own gun. The rest of the hostages quickly emerged. "Hurry!" Lewontin said. "We need to open the murder hole to free the exotroopers!"

The armed ex-hostage promptly pointed his weapon at her. "Try that, witch, and I will take you down myself."

The Flea and the Tick retreated to the elevator and out the hole in its ceiling as the parasitoids forced open the cage. The Tick paused to fire the flechette canister and a phosphorous grenade in their faces, then locked the elevator doors. Above him, the Flea grabbed a parasitoid that pushed its head between the bars around the shaft and kicked its head in. The Tick yelped when a spray of acid came down on his head. The Flea clambered up, while the Tick launched another double blast. His first shot was a smoke grenade that flooded the elevator with phosphorous. His second was a bola shell, aimed at the parasitoids crowding the door to the cage, but a parasitoid climbing up the bars blocked the shot at the cost of its own life. The wires of the bolas were dissolved by acid blood, and while the balls they had connected bounced around to kill a few, there was none of the wholesale death and dismemberment that the round was intended to produce.

The Flea reached the top and began kicking the doors. The Tick followed, until the pongoid struck at him through the bars, damaging his visor housing. It dodged a blast of phosphorous, then flipped over and grabbed him by the ankle. He kicked with the other foot, and the pongoid fell. Below, the parasitoids forced their way into the elevator. Their very numbers and ferocity delayed them in climbing up, long enough for the Tick to fire a phosphorous shell and a concussion grenade. The concussion blast smashed parasitoids against the walls, and further dispersed the phosphorous. "I don't think the WP is hurting them as much as before!" the Tick said. "They definitely don't like it, but they aren't collapsing in flames. Their new exoskeletons must be flame resistant!"

He hurriedly climbed up. For the moment, the parasitoids in the cage were stunned, dead or retreating, but the onslaught could resume at any moment. Above him, the Flea was resorting to trying to push his claws between the doors and push them apart, to no avail.

"There's no way we're getting these doors open by ourselves!" he said.

"Wait a minute," said the Tick. "This is Sgt. Zed's spare armor. Would he ever go into battle with nothing but WP, flechettes and bolas?" The Flea nodded. They both began searching for anything that might be hidden in some cranny of the borrowed armor.

"Listen up!" Lewontin shouted. "We are in a full-fledged crisis! No one in the world, let alone this lab, is safe until containment is restored. And we can't do that without the exotroopers' help, so open that door NOW!" Finally, a lab supervisor came forward. Just as she punched in the last digit of the code that would open the murderhole, an anti-tank grenade punched through both doors at once.

As the Tick pushed apart the outer doors, the armed hostage pressed a fully automatic shotgun to his throat. "Get back!" he said.

The Tick pushed him aside without seeming to give him more than passing notice. The Flea glanced at him long enough to say, "Get a bigger gun!"

0500

Frankepanic, Nibeaux, Maria, Breslo, and his remaining accomplice descended past the lower level of the lab. The accomplice scouted ahead, with Maria as a shield, Nibeaux and Frankepanic followed with the inert Haig, and Bresljo stayed at the rear. Bresljo had the captive scientists go down to the next level while he and his accomplice checked on what was happening in the lab. The Flea and the Tick were fighting parasitoids at the door of the murderhole, while the lab staff retreated into the nearest workroom. 3 parasitoids and five staff lay dead. The Tick used Little Mac to hold back the parasitoids still in the murderhole, while the Flea grappled with three of them outside the work room. As they watched, the Flea pinned one down with his foot, slapped the other with his guardbrace and grabbed the third by the head with the claw. "Boochie!" Maria shouted. He looked to her, and shouted. At that moment, the lashing proboscis of the parasitoid in his grip struck the side of his inner helmet. A percentile of a second later, the one underfoot got loose, and he went down under both of them. Meanwhile, the one that he had knocked aside rose to its feet and charged the mutineers. Bresljo blasted it with his rifle. As they descended, he heard the chatter of Lewontin's pistol.

They exited the stairway to enter a passage that went past the behavior lab and the nest chamber. Bresljo insisted on moving to the front, while his accomplice and Maria went to the rear. "We go up to the dock, and from there to the hangar," he told the scientists. "Then I go for a one-way trip."

The silence was broken by a rustle of wings, a scream from Maria and a muffled cry from the accomplice. The accomplice had one of the winged suckers on his face. He used his gun on himself. The sucker leapt for Maria, landing on her back with enough force to knock her down. Just before her screams were stifled, there was a shout from the Flea, and a warning shotgun blast. Then the Flea saw his lover's plight, and attended to her.

The ectoparasitoid had just latched onto her face when the finback arrived. She had a hand on its tail, which had kept it from drawing tight around her neck. Her arm went limp as the ovipositor slid down her throat, but it was enough time for the Flea to get a servo-powered grip of his own. With a rough jerk, he unwound the tail, but he had no free hand to pry the creature from her face. He pulled in vain, while the body throbbed with the beginning of implantation. Then the Tick arrived. He pried back the creature's legs one by one, dislocating joints without drawing blood, and finally pulled it loose with a jerk to its vestigial head. The sucker struggled in the Flea's grasp like a tethered falcon. The Flea swung it by the tail, slamming it into the walls again and again, and finally threw it down and stomped it. When he raised his foot, acid had burned its silhouette in the floor.

Maria began to vomit, and then to choke. "We have to get her some help!" the Flea said.

"You take care of her; she's your girlfriend," the Tick said. While he was looking back, one of Bresljo's bullets knocked his helmet noticeably askew. "Damn it," the Tick said as he walked back.

"Look here, something is blocking her wind pipe," the Tick said. "We have to perform the Heimlich!" He wrapped his arms around her and planted his thumb (rather than a fist) on her chest. He then made a couple practice jabs before pushing with what was by any standard considerable force. Maria managed a single wheeze but choked again. The Tick pushed again with slightly more force. Several of Maria's ribs cracked, but something the size of a shrimp ejected from her throat and ricocheted off the walls and floor. It was a parasitoid embryo. When it landed, it started to crawl as best it could on eight short, spindly legs, dragging a spherical nutrient sac about as big as the rest of its body behind it. Once again, the Flea's foot came down.

"Hey, Vu's," said the Flea. "Look at this." He pointed to the entrance to the behavior lab. Once again, it was in shambles. It was clear that all the creatures within had escaped, but none were in sight. "They aren't here… They certainly weren't upstairs… So where are they?"

0505

Bresljo and his unwilling helpers reached a stairwell on the near side of the nest chamber.

The mutineer glanced down to see two dots of light on his chest. He instinctively fired off half a clip, and bullets ricocheted off an unseen target. A bolt of energy sailed over his shoulder and exploded behind him, knocking him down the stairs.

The doctors deliberated briefly. "Now what?" said Frankepanic.

"Well, Bresljo was right about one thing: It will take two of us to get this guy to the hangar," Nibeaux said. "So, for the time being, I say we keep going together, as long as nothing- and no one- happens to change the situation." They kept moving.

The Hunter dropped to his knees. His mask had fallen off. His caster was stuck pointing high and to the right; the mount was hopelessly jammed, and the caster itself was leaking coolant from a crack in the casing. Green blood trickled from under his breast plate. Behind him, a trio of suinoids emerged from the storage area. He cut the snout off the first of them with a swipe of his wrist blades, and then staggered out of sight.

The remaining parasitoids looked up to see Bresljo lying one flight up. He grabbed his rifle and felled one with a single shot, and caught the other with two shots in succession as it bounded up the stairs. The acid spatter from the second kill hit the gun and burned it in two. He cast it aside and drew a .50 pistol. Just then, there was a trilling sound. A fourth parasitoid was emerging, very different from the others: the ophoid. It was a little less then 2 meters long, and moved entirely by slithering. Bresljo took aim, but before he could fire, it raised two mobile mandibles and sprayed twin jets of acid in his face.

0505

The doctors reached the other side of the nest chamber, and descended a stairway to the wide floor of a loading dock. A voice shouted from above, "Halt!"

The doctors looked up. Above them, Martinez pointed a silenced pistol at them, holding it rather unsteadily in her right hand. "Well then," Nibeaux said with a smirk, "it would seem the situation has changed in my favor."

"So you might think," Frankepanic said. In a sudden burst of motion, he dropped Haig's legs and ran for a panel next to the huge door that made up almost the entire rear wall of the dock. Martinez fired six shots, but her control of the gun was too poor to hit the moving target. Almost the moment he reached the panel, Frankepanic pushed two or three buttons and pulled a large switch. Orange lights flashed and a hooting siren sounded as the huge door opened. Up reared the frilled head of the parasitoid monarch. Her terrible scream flooded the bay, and resounded through the mobile lab. All hearers had a distinct feeling that it was a cry of joy, not only at liberty but at the prospect of immediate revenge.

Frankepanic bowed as the queen climbed up from the nest. "Your majesty," he said.


	27. Onslaughts

**Onslaughts**

Eastern Kosovo disputed zone: 0530 June 25

Lt. Princip made his report to General Rausch: "It appears that the force was a mix of Shqiptar and Bosniak irregulars, equivalent in strength to one mechanized infantry company. Their materiel was unusually good. Their vehicles were almost all purpose-built paramilitary vehicles, rather than the usual technicals, and the technicals that were present included a hunting pair of adjustable-suspension RCL carriers identical to the one encountered in the Bredilovo engagement. One of these machines killed squire Pietrovic. His actions and those of Karajorga `Sunflower' were instrumental in reversing the enemy's advance. No other _hercegs _were lost, but our supporting mechanized infantry suffered heavily. The enemy force was repelled after suffering 40% losses, and the rest were cut off and wiped out during pursuit. There are no prisoners to report.

"We have determined that the counter-offensive was made to protect a concealed helipad. We captured it largely intact, along with a fully functional `Cyrano' in light ground-attack configuration." He cleared his throat. "Do you have any further word on Omega Aleph?"

Rausch frowned, in a manner suggesting annoyance more than sorrow. "I regret to report that contact with Omega Aleph was lost at 0400 hours. Our preliminary data indicate 85% probability that it has been destroyed."

"I propose," Princip said boldly, "that I and a single squad of hercegs go out on a rescue mission."

"No," Rausch said bluntly. "We do not have sufficient forces to relieve you, or to replace you."

"With respect, sir, reinforcements are currently being sent to our position, to assist in actions against the enemy force that we already destroyed. If there is another attack- and I, for one, believe that the Shqiptars have already expended everything they have available- these will be more than sufficient to repel it. It will not be necessary to support us, or even provide transportation. The Cyrano can carry six of us."

Rausch frowned again. "I don't see how that's possible, and in any event, the answer is still no. A number of other positions are in need of reinforcements, particularly the Podujevo garrison. Your current orders are to take the next available transport to Podujevo."

"But, sir, we are closer to Omega Aleph now than we are to Podujevo!"

"You have your orders! I further order that the Cyrano you captured is to secured in a sealed hangar, until an intelligence team arrives to examine it. That will be all! Omega OUT!"

Omega Aleph

"Frankepanic," Nibeaux said urgently. "There is something I must tell you. You suggested once that the parasitoids might have some form of telepathic ability. I am now sure you were right. They are- or, rather, she is- able to understand us, and to some extent to control us. I have been a victim as much as you. Her control must be subtle, and probably not that powerful… It may be that her power is only strong over those who stay near her over some time; that would explain how the inspector could have ordered the termination of our project. So far, she has done most of her work simply by reinforcing what we already believed, wanted to believe: that the parasitoids are useful. That we were powerful enough to keep them captive, even control them. That it is we who have power over her, not she who holds power over us. And who knows what else she may have planted in our minds, or drawn from them. She could have learned everything she needed to know about us, while leading us to `learn' only what she wanted us to believe."

"If so, what of it?" Frankepanic said, sounding distracted. "The monarch- this creature which transcends the female- has a goal. So do we. Our separate goals can be served by the same ends. So, why should we not work together?"

The queen and eighteen parasitoids were assembled in the bay, all that remained of the nest. The alpha drone, the caprinoid and the pongoid were clustered around the queen. The suinoids were assembled behind the Boar. The queen gave a string of squeals. Three suinoids broke away to join the queen. Then the queen strode up to the Boar. Extending her ovipositor, she laid an egg- a third royal spore. The Boar took it, then it and its eleven followers descended to the storage area.

The queen mustered her entourage and crossed the bay. Near the far end, the floor became noticeably flexible. This was the joining of the fore and aft sections. A few meters beyond that, it ended at the main elevator shaft. Almost dreamily, Frankepanic pushed the buttons to bring the elevator down. As soon as the open platform elevator stopped, the queen and her entourage stormed aboard as one. Frankepanic stepped aboard after them. Just before the elevator started, Nibeaux followed.

0545

The first level of the lab was, for the time being, secure for humanity. At about the time the Flea had gone to help Maria, the queen had called her drones back into the nest. Now, Lewontin argued with the finbacks.

"DiMaccia here," Lewontin said bluntly, "is probably going to die."

"But I told you," said the Flea, "she spat out the embryo before it could dig in."

"She spat out an embryo," Lewontin countered. "They don't implant just one, you know. Usually, the ectoparasitoids implant two or three embryos, sometimes more. The record is five. Each individual embryo has about a 50-50 chance of surviving the endoparasitoid phase."

"All right, then, we check for a surviving embryo," The Tick said. "The simplest way to do that is with an NBR device, and the nearest one of those is upstairs."

"Someone or something is already up there, tearing the place apart," Lewontin said. "In any event, there is something I consider far more important. It is clear that a number of ectoparasitoids escaped from egg storage. By your own account, the nearest available hosts would be the more than thirty pigs in the storage area. Also by your own account, up to eight parasitoids have escaped from the behavior lab, but for some reason failed to come after us. There's one simple explanation: The ectoparasitoids made a mass impregnation among the pigs. The adults in the lab were attracted by this clustering of hosts, and went down to guard them."

She held up the mangled carcass of the creature that had come out of Ghering. "This would have been no more than an hour old at the time of death. Its size and development, however, are equivalent to what has been seen in the 6th hour of previously recorded incubations. In my opinion, it would have been capable of surviving independent of a living host within no more than another five hours- perhaps as little as three. That gives us two hours to kill those pigs and anything that might be growing inside them. So tell me what you think is more important: checking on a woman we probably can't help in any event, or destroying what could easily become a nest as large as the one Nibeaux created artificially?"

"We take her to where you can take care of her," said the Tick, "then we go and see about the stores."

The door to the second level of the lab opened onto a mute scene of carnage. The Tick entered first, and just as he stepped over the threshold, he heard a clicking of retreating feet, and turned to glimpse a miniature suinoid, about the size of a dog, as it swung across the corridor. "We have a hostile. Go the other way!" he said. He fired phosphorous into the room the suinoid had entered. The creature leaped back into the hall, smashing through a window. He fired a mutineer's shotgun, wounding it, but it smashed through a window on the other side on momentum. He advanced cautiously, ready to dispatch it if necessary. Then he spotted a human form, clearly alive, covered in blood, and apparently dazed. "Come out here!" he shouted. When there was no immediate response, he took a couple steps closer. The figure turned abruptly. It was Krnabeg. Even as he turned, he swung the axe with enough force to knock the finback's outer helmet off. The head broke at the impact, but a second swing was enough to knock the Tick down.

Maria screamed, and Krnabeg promptly ran in her direction. She and Lewontin were entering the open door, which the Flea covered with a submachine gun. It took him a moment to bring the gun to bear on his attacker, who came directly from his left side, and that moment was enough for the berserker to reach him. He blocked the first swing with his guardbrace, but the second knocked the gun from his hand. Then three blows in rapid succession struck his inner helmet and gas mask, sending him staggering backward through the door and into Lewontin, who had been about to shoot Krnabeg in the head. The doctor ended up pinned against a wall by the finback, leaving Maria unprotected.

Krnabeg grabbed Maria by the shoulder and pulled her toward his raised axe (which by then was more like a metal-tipped club). Then there was an electronic chirp, announcing that the NBR camera had gone off. The berserker let go of Maria and clutched his abdomen. There was another chirp, and he staggered and dropped his weapon. At the third and the immediately-following fourth, he stumbled back into the corridor. By the time the Flea reached the door, he was gone.

The Tick did not lose consciousness, but damage to his electronic visor left him virtually blind. He was also effectively deaf, as the ringing in his ears had returned at full force. It was simpler to remove his entire inner helmet than to take off the visor alone, so he did the latter. When his vision was cleared, he found himself face to face with the maimed parasitoid. He pointed the shotgun at it and covered his face before firing. When he lowered his forearm, which was covered with enough acid to melt the outer titanium plate, he found that the shotgun had melted. Just at that moment, a second miniature parasitoid peered out of a broken window, hissed and pounced. He swung his helmet to strike it in the face just before it landed, then grabbed it by the neck and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the wall side-first in a spray of gore. Half its body was crushed, and the other half stuck like a bas relief sculpture.

"Get inside and shut the door!" the Flea said. "We have to be ready for more of them!" Just then, there was a sound of clicking claws, echoing up from the stairwell. Within seconds, there was a single burst of shotgun fire from downstairs, followed by hideous screams.

East Kosovo disputed zone: 0600

Princip surveyed his volunteers: Zotgjakt, Sunflower, Lupov, Potok, one of the few other commander/instructors, and Mihan, a promising new _herceg_ in consideration for sergeant. "I will be frank: It is quite likely that I and anyone who knowingly assists me will be court-martialed. I have received orders that will move us to another theater, and leave three of our best hercegs to certain death. I will face certain dishonor or death before I let that happen. Needless to say, use of one of high command's helicopters is out of the question. But we can use one of the two Cyranos we captured."

"Did you happen to tell Rausch there were two?" Zotgjakt asked in amusement.

"I told him there was one in flying condition, which was true." He shrugged expansively. "Is it my fault if he incorrectly assumes there was only one?"

Sunflower chuckled. "Deception without lying: You could match Zaratustra!"

Lupov raised his hand. "But, sir, a Cyrano's hold only seats five people, and that's if you pack them in. I wouldn't have thought that more than two of us could fit in there. What about the rest of us?"

Omega Aleph: 0630

Henna's report came to Frankepanic over the radio: "There's over a hundred large boulders on top of the doors. There's no way we can open the doors until we remove them, and there's no way we can remove them by ourselves. What do you propose we do?"

Frankepanic locked down the helmet on the stealth exoskeleton. "We do the work ourselves," he said, "but with a few foreign tools."

In the conning tower, Ling spoke to Ndoka: "Listen… If you let me open my briefcase, I will give you 10,000 euros."

In the lab, Lewontin told the Flea, "The scan is conclusive: She is infected. However, it has not attached to the circulatory system as they usually do. Instead, it has gone into what we call a cystic incubation: It has surrounded itself in something like a cocoon, to protect itself from its host's immune system, and is growing using stored nutrients and what it can absorb passively. A cystic endoparasitoid is quite simple to extract. However, if they reach maturation, they are even more- destructive to the host than usual. When the cyst breaks open, the endoparasitoid emerges as what we call a proctoid. The one I took from Ghering was in that phase. This morph of the parasitoid is not capable of living independently, but can survive short periods in the open air if necessary. They feed on living and- very recently dead animals from within, after first entering… through the mouth… or anus… or the- female genitalia."

The Tick pounded furiously on the door. "The people we left in the workroom are all gone," he said. "But at least two were taken alive; I heard them screaming. A couple caught me off guard… I had to use the last bola canister to take them down. The rest were already withdrawing, I'm sure just to carry away the live captives. I expect they will be back, soon."

In the storage area, pigs with grotesquely swollen bodies staggered about, or fought convulsively, or lay comatose on the deck. Two bound captives hung on the wall before the royal egg. The creature in the egg stirred, and the lobes of the shell began to loosen. A third captive, an injured woman, lay next to a pair of pigs that had expired. Life squirmed beneath the dead hide. A bulge burst open, and a "proctoid" burst out. Another followed, then two more, and three after that. The woman screamed, briefly.

Three parasitoids stood watch over the hellish scene. They turned as two of their fellows entered, carrying a new captive: the injured Hunter.

Finally, a few tens of kilometers to the north, the sounds of morning were interrupted by the roar of a helicopter rotor. It was a Cyrano, flying low and slowly. Four strange objects hung from the racks that normally held missiles, bombs and gun pods. These would have been recognizable, after careful examination, as Princip, Zotjakt, Sunflower and Potok. If anyone had listened very closely, they might have heard some of the notes as the finbacks sang Tom Lehrer's "Song For World War 3."


	28. Opening endgame

**OKay, innocent bystanders (aka readers), there's about three chapters to go after this one... This chapter is setting up a pair of simultaneous battles that form the planned climax. On a personal note, once in a while when I'm working, I stop for a good laugh. The end of this chapter was one of those times. See what you think...**

**Opening endgame**

0645

Two cocooned humans, a man and a woman, screamed as the royal egg opened. The man's cries ended with a last reedy shriek when he was stung by the ectoparasitoid. The woman was still screaming when the parasitoid plunged its proboscis into her chest.

Nearby, another captive lay distended and dying, with the tails of premature parasitoids sticking out of every orifice, and from a wound in her belly. The only sign of life was a blink of her eyes, and a single tear that ran down her cheek. Suddenly, the shadow of a tall, bulky figure loomed over her. She raised her eyes. A gauntleted hand reached down and snapped her neck. Her eyes widened in surprise, and quite possibly relief, before rolling in death.

The royal ectoparasitoid, having finished feeding, turned to the third captive, the Hunter. It hesitated, and even retreated a step, as if some ancestral memory warned it of a deadly foe. But, its fear passed quickly enough. It darted toward Hunter and began to sting, or try to. Time and again, its ovipositor was stopped by Hunter's armor. It worked upward, toward the Jag ut jag's exposed neck. Just before its tail could thrust home, a concussion grenade hit the Hunter's breastplate and knocked the ectoparasitoid to the floor. It righted itself and raised its proboscis at an approaching figure. Before it could spray its acid bile, a metal tube went into its open mouth. There was a muffled bang, and its body swelled like a balloon. It darted away on violently twitching legs, belching puffs of phosphorous, to burst finally in a puff of ash.

Zaratustra stepped in front of Hunter. "If I free you," he said, "will you kill me?"

The Hunter bared his inner mouthparts and clicked his upper mandibles. "Will you kill me?" he said in a croaking voice.

"Fair enough." The cocoon broke open at a single tug.

0650

Aided by the strength of the exoskeleton, Frankepanic lifted enormous boulders from the doors and the helipad and cast them over the edge of Omega Aleph's roof. Henna, wearing the armor of the Huntress, reduced even larger boulders to manageable proportions with shots from the shoulder-mounted plasma cannon. When the last of the unliftable boulders was reduced to three modest boulders plus cobbles and gravel, Henna and Frankepanic conferred. "I can handle the rest myself," Frankepanic said. "You go back down to the hangar, and get ready to fly out of here."

"Will you fly with us?"

Frankepanic shook his head. "I think not. It is enough for me to see our triumph begun. If will be for you to see our final victories, to ensure that our people survive while the sub-men perish and then to take back the Earth from their killers."

Henna shook her head. "No, I think Zaratustra was in the right. We may outlast the _untermenschen_, but in the end our fate will be the same. But the souls of true men will be free, and that is all that matters."

0655

Three parasitoids sternly examined the carcass of the royal ectoparasitoid. They then "looked" to a spherical device beside it, one whose LED display had just dropped to single digits. The trio reacted instantly. One wrapped itself around the device (a large thermate charge), one began slashing and kicking at the pigs to drive them away, and the third grabbed the impregnated man and ran for safety.

The detonation of the charge turned the parasitoid holding it into an expanding cloud of flame, vapor and ash. Six pigs were enveloped, to run with their hides in flames, or scream and fall, or simply roast where they lay. Proctoids erupted from the burning carcasses.

At the door of the lab room, the pounding of besieging parasitoids at the door seemed to lessen. "I think I hear some of them leaving," said the Tick. "There might be just two of them still out there! Try scanning with the NBR again."

The scan brought three inhuman shrieks, and showed three parasitoids, two of which collapsed. The Tick opened the door, grabbed the nearest parasitoid by the tail and dashed its skull against a wall. One of the other parasitoids lunged for him. He threw the still-writhing body in his arms to pin his attacker. He then kicked its head in. By the time he turned around, the Flea had dispatched the last of the attackers.

"All right, here's how we do it," the Flea said. "We all get Maria to an operating room. Then the two of us go see where the rest of the critters went!"

0700

In the conning tower, Ndoka examined the contents of Ling's brief case. "Well, there is about 10,000 Euros here," he said. He stuffed the majority of the bills in his breast pocket. He frowned and held up a grenade launcher. "You were not by any chance hoping to get this, were you?"

"I didn't expect that you would overlook it," Ling said.

Ndoka spent a moment frowning in thought. "I suppose you kept your end. Now what do you want?"

"I would enjoy a cigarette, and a lighter."

Ndoka smirked. "Do you think I've never seen a James Bond movie?"

Frankepanic's voice came from the loudspeaker: "Ndoka, prepare to open the doors."

In the hangar, the lift rose, with the light helicopter on it. Henna was at the controls, while Haig, still more or less comatose, was strapped in beside her. The lift stopped just after it rose out of sight. There was a rubbery smacking sound as pressure seals activated around the elevator.

On the roof, the lift doors retracted to half their length, then swung up and slid down. Before the elevator could restart, Frankepanic shouted, "Abort! Shut the doors!"

Out of sight, but clearly very near, the sound of an approaching helicopter could be heard. Frankepanic disappeared in a crackle of energy as Princip's dubiously appropriated Cyrano flew overhead.

"Set me down on the pad," Princip said as the copter doubled back. "Wait for my signal before you drop off the others." He leaped from the bomb rack as the craft made its second pass and tumbled to a stop on the helipad.

"No response," he said as he unlimbered a rifle. "Preparing to make an NBR sweep." At that moment, a large rock rose from the pad and smashed against the back of his helmet. He fell face-first to the deck, his dropped rifle sliding away from him.

"No response from Princip," the pilot said.

"Then do another pass to establish his status!" Potok said irritably. The helicopter did just that, moving slower than before. As it went over the pad a second time, a figure appeared out of nowhere, and fired a plasma bolt from torus mounted on one shoulder. The Cyrano's tail was nearly severed, and the craft went tumbling into the ground.

Frankepanic returned to invisibility. (His exoskeleton was fitted with an extra generator that provided power for the cloaking device and plasma torus, but not both at the same time.) He tossed the rifle over the side, and kicked Princip twice for good measure, knocking off his helmet. "Ndoka! Open the doors! Ndoka! Ndoka!... Henna, you're going to have to get out of the helicopter and go up to the conning tower. Ndoka is not responding."

Ndoka was, in fact, dead. His throat was torn out, courtesy of Dr. Krnabeg, who was currently feeding on his body. Dr. Ling had so far been ignored. He scooted closer. Krnabeg looked up, just in time to catch a kick full in the face. He lurched back, but did not fall. He lunged at ling with the speed and ferocity of a panther. The doctor rolled on his back and kicked up with both legs, to catch the berserker's neck between his feet. He then swung him sideways, slamming his head against a console and twisting his neck. Krnabeg's lifeless body fell on top of his victim.

Ling rolled back, swinging his cuffed hands under his own backside. Krnabeg seemed to stir, though the way his head lulled left no doubt of his state. Tiny hands slid out from under him, followed by the head of a miniature parasitoid. Ling stuck a tiny blob of putty on the cuffs and thrust out his hands as far as he could. The putty ignited with a flash and a shower of sparks. The handcuff chain and one of the cuffs broke apart from the head. Some of the sparks hit Ndoka's shirt, setting the fabric on fire. The parasitoid freed itself to the waist with a lunge, and snapped its jaws and proboscis at Ling. Ling dived behind his briefcase, just as the flames reached Ndoka's breast pocket.

In the hangar below, the queen clawed at the metal floors in anxiety. "It would appear, your majesty, that your helpers are running into some trouble," Nibeaux said. "Perhaps some of them are having doubts." The queen turned her head and made a long, elaborate, frothing hiss right in his face.

"As much as I can appreciate the sentiment," Zaratustra said, "I must ask that you back away from my employer."


	29. Battle royal

**I debated which order to put this and "invisible enemies" in. I also considered intercutting between the two battles, but the separate chapters seemed better to me. I welcome input about what readers think would be best.  
**

**Battle royal**

0705

The queen turned with a snarl to face Zaratustra. Her brood screamed in unison, revealing their positions in the process. The suinoids formed a protective line in front of her, and the caprinoid and the alpha drone stood at her side. The pongoid swung from the ceiling. From out of an adjacent storage room on the right, the ophoid slithered.

The suinoids struck first, charging in unison. He brought two down with his slug gun and kicked back a third. He heard a hiss from the right, and ducked in time to avoid a mass of caustic bile spewed by the ophoid. The ophoid then retreated, but the pongoid dropped on Zaratustra from above. He managed to keep on his feet. The pongoid held onto his back with its feet, and threw one arm all the way around his chest. Before it could throw its other arm around him to complete the bear hug, he stunned it with a blow over his own shoulder and knocked it to the floor with an elbow jab. When it fell, it tore open a hydraulic line that connected the torso and pelvis of the exoskeleton. The last suinoid charged then. Zaratustra grabbed the pongoid by the ankles and threw it like an oversized discus. The heads of the flying pongoid and charging suinoid connected with literally shattering force.

The alpha drone and caprinoid stood protectively before their queen. She pushed them roughly aside to advance toward the finback. He emptied a clip of slugs at her, with minimal effect. Then, while he was reloading, she lashed out with her ovipositor and knocked him into a repair bay at the rear of the hangar.

The queen stooped to enter the bay, which held a single medium helicopter. Zaratustra had lost his slug gun, but had just found a 23 mm autocannon. He fired two short bursts, all he could manage without risking being knocked over. With a burst of speed and the deceptive agility of her double-jointed legs, the queen dodged his fire and took cover behind the parked helicopter. He fired through the copter, and a screech and a spattering sound announced a hit. The queen countered by pushing over the craft. He leaped aside fast enough to dodge the cockpit and cabin, but was hit and pinned in place by the tail. The queen goose-stepped toward him. He saw that she now possessed only three arms; one of his shots had severed her inner right arm. As she reached out in triumph, she staggered and screeched. A harpoon materialized in her right leg. The Hunter became visible with a roar, and retreated into the main hangar with the queen limping along behind him.

Zaratustra freed himself with a shove and got to his feet. Then he heard a double hiss. The alpha drone and the caprinoid were approaching, the latter on all fours and the former on hind legs. "So, do you wish another test of strength?" he said. The only answer was an attack.

The alpha drone charged him with its head held low and shoulders hunched. The caprinoid leaped at him from the left. He swatted the caprinoid down with a forearm blow, and felled the alpha drone with a kick in the chest. He was lunging for the stunned alpha drone when the caprinoid bit into his calf servo. He kicked back savagely. The caprinoid dodged easily, then turned tail and let fly with both feet into his rump. He was hurled forward, straight into the arms of the alpha drone.

In the moment of collision, it seemed that Zaratustra had the advantage, for the parasitoids were quite lightly built, and as Zaratustra had said, mass was the key consideration in any collision of bodies. But the alpha drone managed to turn him enough to land on top of him rather than vice versa. They skidded along the floor until Zaratustra's helmet hit the wall, at which point the alpha drone added to the damage with a blow of its tail. It took a punch from Zaratustra's right fist, and a resulting puncture of the drone's neck, to knock the alpha drone back.

The alpha drone retreated, and Zaratustra pressed a counter-attack, with a brutality that would have shocked even the most appalled witnesses to his previous actions. He punched/stabbed again and again, mainly at the chest, neck and abdomen. He was not just aggressive, but relentless; not brutally thorough, but excessive, even sadistic. Yet, even now, there was little of true frenzy to his actions. As often and rapidly as his blows fell, they still had the measured arc and meter of a methodical attack. This was not the fury of a berserker, but of a machine in overdrive. As happened far too often, Zaratustra threatened to do as much damage to himself as to his adversary. When the caprinoid circled him, butting, biting and kicking at his flanks, he countered with only half-hearted swats. He gave even less heed to acid gore that gushed and spattered over his armor, pooling in the joints of his armor.

Finally, the alpha drone collapsed. He grabbed it by its regenerated right arm and hauled it up for more punishment, but the arm snapped off. He raised his fist for a killing blow, but his arm froze even as it fell, then began to twitch as if in a convulsion. The acid has burned through a servo housing. Smoke and sparks poured out of his elbow joint. The hideously mutilated creature at his feet raised its head and made an eerie trilling that could not fail to suggest vengeful glee. He took a step back, his right leg dragging a little. That was when the caprinoid came charging from the other end of the bay to tackle him at the knees.

Zaratustra caught hold of the caprinoid's head as he fell, and by pulling on both horns he snapped its skull like a wishbone. But there was nothing he could do when the alpha drone reared up ant struck at his back. Its acid blood did as much damage as its claws and teeth. It bent its head toward the back of its neck. The blood from its ruptured throat rapidly melted the bars of his crown. Before it could deliver the coup de grace, a shot rang out. It rose and turned, only to catch two slugs in the chest. It let out a gargling screech, fell forward and lay still. Zaratustra turned his head to look on his rescuer: It was Dr. Nibeaux, armed with his own slug gun.

Nibeaux proffered the gun to Zaratustra. "Come quickly," he croaked. "We have to take care of the queen."

In the middle of the hangar floor, the Hunter and the monarch fought a savage stalemate. The Hunter wielded a two-meter weapon fitting the description of a weapon called the brandistock. Its triangular head had a central blade and two more that swung out to either side. The harpoon in the queen's leg not only slowed her down, but hindered her when she made right turns. The Hunter used it to his advantage by pressing the attack from the right. The queen was further hampered by the loss of her inner right arm. The Hunter had already inflicted several major wounds, and he seemed almost to be teasing the queen. As the humans watched, he thrust out the brandistock with the blades open and then shut them to clip off a piece of the queen's frill. The queen swung her remaining right arm, but an injury kept her from raising it higher than her shoulder. However, she was able to wheel around to bring her ovipositor to bear. The Hunter shifted and struck again at her vulnerable right side, and so the stalemate continued. Meanwhile, the elevator rose for a helicopter launch.

Nibeaux pointed upward. "We can immobilize the monarch with the overhead crane," he said. Without waiting for a response, he ran for a ladder to the catwalk. Just as he was starting to climb, the ophoid slithered out of a storeroom. "Sophie!" he exclaimed. "ZARATUSTRA!" The finback stood by nonchalantly. He hurried up the ladder, barely escaping a strike by the ophoid. When it did not catch him at the bottom, it reared back in a prelude to a spray. But the only spray that actually came was blood out of the side of its cheek. A second shot struck its head, a third and a fourth, and more whizzed by. Finally, the ophoid fell. The shots had come not from Zaratustra but from the catwalk, where Martinez stood with a silenced pistol.

Martinez circled the cat walk in time to meet Nibeaux as he was climbing into the crane. "What are you doing?" she said.

"I have to save the queen!" he said. She grabbed him by the arm.

"Master! Perfect!" she pleaded. "You warned Frankepanic that the monarch was telepathic, that she might manipulate our minds. Are you willing to risk her doing that to you?"

"Her power proves that the power of mind over mind is real," he said, sounding almost hypnotized. "That is why we must preserve her for further study!" At that, he pushed her away and shut the cab.

With a soprano screech, the Huntress entered the fight. She raised a spear that expanded into a 7 m polearm and sprinted toward the queen's left side. The queen was finally forced to retreat rather than circle. The Hunter lunged in and thrust the closed brandistock into a seam in the egg sac, then spread the outer blades to enlarge the wound. He then jumped back as milky fluid spilled out.

It was at that moment that Nibeaux intervened. The crane peeled down the rail it hung from, swiveled and lowered a four-digit claw. The queen was seized by the neck and lifted like a kitten. She screamed and thrashed, shaking the crane back and forth. The Jag ut jag were no less outraged. The Hunter fired a warning shot with his caster. The Huntress moved under the crane and thrust upward with her polearm. In doing so, she stepped into the path of the queen's lashing ovipositor. The Hunter saw what was going to happen, and in the blink of an eye, he acted. He pushed the Huntress away, and the ovipositor thrust into his abdomen, punching through his belly armor and going out his back. He raised the caster, aimed at the queen's head and fired. Two shots so close together proved too much for the damaged caster. Instead of firing a plasma bolt, the gun exploded. The blast consumed the Hunter's forearm, and did plenty of damage to the queen and the crane. The crane shook, and the queen came free.

The Huntress staggered and dropped her polearm at the blast. The queen got up and made a loping sprint for the elevator shaft, finally leaping out over the open space. In full health, she might have cleared the 5 m gap. As it was, she managed to dig her claws into the floor of the bay outside the nest and clung to the edge.

The Huntress dropped beside the dying Hunter. She was appalled not only by his mortal wounds but by his missing eye and cratered forehead, testimony to his last encounter with Zaratustra. She was also shocked by what he had done. It was the Law of the Hunt that each Hunter was responsible for his own life and health. It was a transgression of the Law to intervene to save another Hunter, especially when it endangered the success of the Hunt. She asked in the tongue of the Jag ut jag: "Why did you break the Law?"

He drew a human symbol with his own blood, the cross that appeared in so many human temples. "On this Hunting Ground, there is another Law," he said, struggling not to choke on his blood. "The strong… fight for the weak… Die if they must, so that the weak may become strong. That… will be our new Law."

"But my father, that is Heresy!"

His eyes seemed to brighten. "My child… a little heresy is not such a bad thing." His eyes shut forever, yet it seemed the light remained.

Huntress raised her head and clashed her mouth parts, sounding a stuttering howl. Then she tore open his armor and drew the saw-edged Funeral knife. With three swift cuts, she opened his chest and lifted up his heart. She held it high as she sang the song of commemoration. Then she raised it to her mandibles and ate the Funeral Feast.


	30. Invisible enemies

**Invisible enemies**

**This takes place at the exact same time as events in "Battle Royal." If you read this chapter first, go back and read that chapter before going on to "Endlossung".  
**

0705

Frankepanic glanced up at the noise and bright flash. "What in Chaos?! Henna, we have a possible hostile presence in the tower. Take ap-" His advice was cut off by a 12-gauge concussion grenade to his helmet. Princip emptied his slug gun at his adversary, making the cloaking field flicker with every hit. Then, while Frankepanic was still partly visible, he launched a harpoon.

The cloaking field began to flicker, as did the cable and Princip. The finback hauled Frankepanic toward him, but after being dragged for 3 m Frankepanic dug his feet in and managed to pull hard enough to jerk Princip forward a couple of steps. He then turned off the cloaking field and fired the plasma torus. Princip dodged the fireball, but the cable was melted, and the sudden release plus the concussive blast as the fireball disappeared knocked him off his feet.

Ling opened his briefcase and took out a grenade-launching cup and a detachable grip that allowed it to be used as a stand-alone weapon. He then took out a belt with a dozen grenades. He peered through the hole blasted in the wall. He saw Princip, reaching for his dropped slug gun. Frankepanic appeared, launched a fireball and promptly disappeared. The fireball narrowly missed Princip, and completely destroyed his gun. Ling fired a grenade at Frankepanic, and knocked out the plasma torus. Frankepanic promptly detached the device and cloaked again.

Behind Ling, an elevator door opened. He whirled around, only to find the elevator seemingly empty. He fired a grenade, which sent a shimmering form flying out of the elevator. It was Henna. She crashed headfirst into a control panel, where she lay flickering in and out of visibility. Ling grabbed her, only to be kicked in the chest. He found himself on his back, with a plasma caster pointed at him. He seized his briefcase and raised it just as the weapon fired. The bullet-proof ceramic stopped the fireball, but shattered in the process. The flash, noise and shock of the resulting explosion gave Ling enough time to scramble up a ladder.

Princip twirled the broken cable like a lasso as he stalked across the platform. He lashed in the direction of a sound and scored a clanging hit to an invisible target. He then made a loop and tossed ahead of a visibly moving distortion of light, catching his adversary around one ankle. Frankepanic was yanked off his feet and reeled in, his cloaking field failing entirely. Just when it seemed he was at Princip's mercy, a barrage of fireballs fell on the finback. He staggered and then fell. This time, the cable did not break. Frankepanic fell upon Princip, while they were still bound to each other.

The ladder which Ling climbed led to the main air defense turret. He then went through a hatch to emerge on the conning tower roof, inside a cable fence. He heard the shots as Henna fired the Jag ut jag plasma caster, and the metallic blows as the armored combatants came to a grapple. Looking over the edge, he could see the giant launch doors. He gave a calculating smile. There was no way for Henna to open the doors, let alone launch a helicopter, without giving him a perfect shot at the craft. Therefore, she would have to come after him first.

Princip was beyond doubt a superior fighter. But Frankepanic had received hand-to-hand combat training comparable to that of a US marine, and his exoskeleton gave him equal strength. Princip rolled away, and managed to regain his feet, only to fall again after a short exchange of blows in which Frankepanic had the clear advantage by position alone. Frankepanic kicked his opponent furiously with his unentangled right foot, denting his inner helmet and cracking his facemask. Princip slowed the onslaught by rolling away. Finally, he executed a roundhouse kick that sent Frankepanic tumbling over him- and off the helipad. Princip tumbled and rolled to a skidding halt at the very edge. They were on the left side of the pad, which ended less than two meters from the edge of Omega Aleph's roof. Frankepanic was dangling over this second drop. "Power down, or I drop you!" he shouted.

Frankepanic answered in Serbo-Croatian, "For glory!" Princip slapped the cable release, too late. With a double-handed pull of the cable, Frankepanic sent both of them tumbling thirty meters to the boulder-strewn ground. There was a double crunch that could only have been made by one man in an exoskeleton landing on top of another.

Ling was startled when the doors opened, and doubly surprised when the helicopter lifted into view. He hastily loaded his only anti-vehicle grenade, a shaped-charge round wider than the cup itself, and took aim at the base of the rotor mast. He hesitated, then by some undefinable instinct darted back. A plasma fireball detonated where his head had been. He darted up the rear of the turret, to peer out from behind the radar mast. He switched the anti-vehicle round with a flechette canister, and fired at a slightly drooping cable below. Henna's form flickered into view. She lost her balance, but fell forward instead of back.

Henna managed to tumble as she landed, rolling forward as the cloaking field kicked back in. Ling fired a smoke grenade. Her form was reveled again, as a silhouette in the smoke. Ling ducked in time to dodge the swing of an unseen pair of blades. He drew a ceramic knife and thrust under her outstretched arm. The blade snapped, but drew blood. She responded with a fearsome kick that knocked Ling off the turret. She leaped down after him. Ling blocked her thrust by opening the hatch, then retreated inside before she could finish him off.

He looked at the controls, only to find them smashed. He heard the helicopter's engines start up, then looked out the blast hole to see the craft rolling onto the pad, its rotor spinning faster and faster. He fired the shaped-charge grenade just as the helicopter lifted off. It ricocheted off a rotor blade. The helicopter seemed to fade out of existence as a cloaking field activated. Then there was a loud clang: the impact of a harpoon. Ling gaped as Princip rose from the edge of the pad, soon fading out of sight himself.

Looking out the helicopter canopy with the cloaking field on was like gazing up from the bottom of a muddy stream. The Hunter's mask somehow interrupted the field over the eyepieces, but there had been no time to duplicate the apparatus. Henna navigated with radar only. She ascended steeply to clear a mountain without slowing down, and noticed that the tail seemed to drag. She leveled out at cruising altitude after five minutes of flight. It was at about that time that she heard a tentative tapping, Then Princip's fist smashed through the window on her left. The murk outside became a swirling vortex as the helicopter spun out of control, then all was darkness.

She awoke with blood in her eyes. The cockpit had caved in; half the instrument panel was in her lap. She felt searing pain where the panel crushed into her midriff, and nothing at all below that. She looked to her left and saw Princip, apparently unhurt but pinned between the wrecked copter and a fallen tree. Finally, she looked to her right. The other side had taken even more damage. Haig's body was as twisted and mangled as the surrounding metal and glass.

There was a wrenching sound as Princip moved. He pushed at the hull, sending her into even worse pain, but she did not cry out. She looked at the alien device on her right arm. She found that her left arm was pinned, but with her right, she put a pen in her mouth. She then used the pen to open the panel cover and press three buttons. Extraterrestrial digits began counting down. Princip put his fist through the glass and grabbed her by the throat. "What did you just do?" he shouted.

"F--- your own arse, Slav," she said through clenched death. She then spat out the pen, splattering bloody saliva over his visor. Princip cursed in his own tongue and began to push harder. She closed her eyes and prepared for death.

She opened them again when she heard a hiss (over the sounds of Princip's continuing efforts). She looked to see a parasitoid slither out of the gory ruin of its host. It had the barest hint of a frill around its 3 cm skull. It spread a pair of wings. "That's it," she said. "Fly! Go to your destiny! Breed and kill! Escape!" But escape was not on its mind. It moved toward her, flicking its proboscis. "No! NO! NOOHH!" Her words became screams as it bored into her chest, screams of despair as well as pain. As the creature consumed her, she felt a jolt and steady movement. Princip had freed himself , with a push that sent the wreck sliding down the ridge. He ran for the other side of the ridge, leaving the wreck to slide straight into a lake.


	31. Endlossung

_**Endlossung**_

An offense to honor is not paid for with property, but by the spilling of blood or a magnanimous pardon.

Albanian Kanun

The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

George Bernard Shaw

0715 hours

From the conning tower, Ling saw the flash and the plume of steam as Henna was immolated by the Hunter's Funeral Light. Moments later, he heard a whir as the elevator lowered. It descended three meters, down to the level of the pressure seals, then stopped. There was a whir from the motors, cut short by a metallic chunk. The motors started again, with the same result. Ling had already deduced the problem: Safety systems would not allow the elevator to go any lower while the doors were open. A minute or two later, a hatch behind him opened. "Herr Inspektor," Zaratustra said, "we require the use of the elevator, and also the door controls."

Below, the newly arrived finbacks were gathering for an assault. They had all managed either to bail out of the helicopter before the crash, or climb out unhurt after. Not all of their gear had made it. Zotgjakt had the flame thrower, but had lost the compressed air tanks and charger. Potok had lost his 14.5 mm rifle, and would have to make due with his slug gun and wrist grenade launcher. However, Lupov, Mihan and Sunflower were fully armed, and unusually well-armed at that. In place of his usual recoilless gun, Sunflower had a sawed-off 81 mm mortar, which it was dimly conceivable for a finback to fire from the shoulder. In addition, his array of improvised close-quarters weapons currently included a cat-o'-nine-tails made from weighted chains stripped from an antiquated mine-clearing vehicle. Mihan was armed with an AGL, and Lupov carried a monstrous 14.5 mm machine gun.

Potok approached the exposed hatch that Zaratustra had opened. He wore a single spike on his cap as a token of his command, just enough of a mark for the men to see as he darted among the rocks. Mihan covered him. While not yet formally a squad leader, and thus not entitled to a crown, he had alredy modified his helmet to mark himself, by attaching chains that ran like a headdress from the front of his cap to the back of his neck. He was already widely known by the notorious name "Dreadlocks". When they reached the door, Dreadlocks duly noted, "That looks like it was forcibly opened… maybe by Zed's gas spike. Someone could have escaped."

"And so could something," Potok said. He was a Russian, trained by Spetsnaz on the earliest marks of the "finback" exoskeleton, then deployed to Serbia as an "adviser". (The Tick was also a Russian, though he had immigrated to Serbia before the war.) In fact, he was the _de facto_ supreme commander of the Serb-Montenegrin exotrooper corp. Almost all of their doctrines had been defined by him, and all of their first-generation officers had trained under him.

Potok darted up to the vehicle. "Put some light in there," he ordered. Zotgjakt pumped his flame carbine three times and fired a jet of liquid flame through the hatch. Inside, there was a contralto screech. Moments later, a parasitoid drone, maimed in battle, toppled out the hatch to land on the ground. It reached for Potok, who dispatched it with his slug gun. A second parasitoid lunged at Potok from between two road wheels. It was the Boar. He wounded it with the last round in the clip. Then the creature was upon him. It grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him in. Its proboscis struck twice against his face mask, and its tail thrust into the segmented plated of his lower back. He countered with an uppercut to the chin and a kick in the belly. He brought his wrist launcher to bear for a head shot, but it slapped his left arm, causing a spray of flechettes to blow off its arm instead. The Boar and the finback staggered back. Then Lupov and Dreadlocks opened fire, and the Boar vanished in a cloud of corrosive mist.

Potok walked over to his men. His very walk exuded confidence, but blood was flowing where the creature had struck, and he was wheezing audibly. "That should take care of any major surprises," he said. "But it would be best to have a second point of entry. I see some major blast damage up there, right over the running gear. Sunflower, do you think you can make a hole there?"

"How small, sir?" The others chuckled. Sunflower moved forward and loaded a shaped charge bomb, whose nose protruded from the very short barrel of the mortar. He bolted two extra plates on his right arm to keep his elbow and shoulder rigid, then hefted the mortar. The sound of the mortar was surprisingly low, more like a thump than an explosion. The recoil was still enough to stagger Sunflower. The blast left a football-sized hole in the innermost layer of armor. Two more shots, with a "squash-head" demolition round and an EFP shell, made it wide enough to crawl through. Hideous screams and sprays of gore came out of the hole. Lupov examined a large chunk.

"It's a pig's foot," he exclaimed.

"More pork barrel spending," said Sunflower.

Suddenly, a hideously wounded pig seemed to fly out of the hole, sailing several meters horizontally before gravity took over. It burst open on impact. A second pig pitched head-first, kicking and squealing, to land on its snout. As a third pig fell, Sunflower cried out. A squirming larva had crawled out from amidst the first pig's scattered innards, and was currently chewing on his calf servo. He smashed half its body flat with the mortar base plate, but the head continued to gnaw at the ceramic servo housing. It let go only when Potok shocked it with a taser. By then, the sixth pig had hit the ground, with the seventh falling immediately behind it. A dozen proctoids could be seen slithering about.

"Time to fry some bacon!" said Zotgjakt. He sprayed three piled carcasses with the flame carbine. Sunflower lashed the scattering proctoids with his chains.

"Never mind them!" Potok shouted to Sunflower. "Put a frag or a smoke shell in that hole before more come out!"

Sunflower fired again, but he staggered and fell because of damage to the calf servo, and the shot went wide. Phosphorous smoke obscured the hole without going into it. The proctoid on his ankle had chewed deep enough to damage the servo. Pigs continued to fall. A dozen of the snakelike creatures swarmed for the downed exotrooper. Zotgjakt laid down an arc of fire to drive them back, neglecting the ones that were emerging from the pig carcasses and leaping out of the hole. He had to pause to load new napalm bottles. Dreadlocks and Lupov covered him, blasting the proctoids as they piled up behind the flame. Potok knelt beside Sunflower and added the fire of his slug gun.

The rain of pigs ended at fifteen. Now, as the smoke was clearing, two adult parasitoids leaped down from the hole. One of them was shot to pieces in mid air. Another landed and charged, despite wounds that were almost certainly mortal, only to be stopped in its tracks by the jet of the flame carbine. It fell where it stood, with flame gouting from the tubes on its back. Then two more suddenly came charging out of the rocks behind them. Dreadlocks had emptied the drum in his grenade launcher, and Lupov ran through the last of a belt taking down one of the pair. It was left to Zotgjakt to stop the last, but the flame carbine proved to be low on compressed air. The napalm flew in a low-angle arc instead of a sustained jet, setting the creature ablaze but not taking away its momentum. "Duck, Albanac!" a voice said. Zotgjakt did. The parasitoid was suddenly hurled back at blinding speed, to hit a cliff face and be buried by a downpour of rocks. A moment later, its buried carcass exploded. Sunflower lowered the mortar and got to his feet.

The adults' attack had failed, but the distraction had allowed the larvae to close in. Some lunged over the dying barrier of flame, while others found their way around. Zotgjakt doused them, not bothering to work the air compressor, until the bottles again ran dry. Sunflower decimated the creatures with his flail, steadily losing pieces of chain to acid damage. Dreadlocks and Lupov fired until proctoids were at their very feet, then shouldered their main weapons and opened up with phosphorous and flechette canisters from their wrist launchers. Within moments, they were reduced to crushing proctoids at their feet and yanking them off their own and each others' armor. Even then, they managed to hold the tide at bay, but there could be no doubt of the outcome- until Potok entered the fray.

With a shout of "Vivovdan!" he leaped over the sputtering flame and went loping through the midst of the swarming proctoids. He crushed a dozen and more under foot within seconds, but within that time two dozen had latched onto his armor, and that number and half again went slithering after him. When one of the larvae thrust its head into the wound on his back, he cried out and fell. Meanwhile, the other finbacks rallied against the suddenly thinned swarm. Sunflower, down to a single length of chain in his flail, beat off the proctoids clinging to his armor, and used an unusually large one he caught nosing around his backside like a lash against the others. Zotgjakt furiously pumped the carbine to a maximum charge and blasted them with enough force to wash them away like rats before a fire hose. Dreadlocks turned away from the fight at the sound of Potok's cry. He tried to run to his mentor, but Lupov grabbed him by the arm. He turned with fist raised in fury. Before he could strike a blow, Potok's form flashed with the blaze of a thermate charge.

At the heat and light of the blast, the score or so of proctoids that did not perish fled. It was no trouble at all for the finbacks to destroy them. The likeliest hiding places were flooded with phosphorous or napalm, or simply collapsed with grenades. Zotgjakt crisscrossed the field with lines of fire, burning the occasional cluster and hemming in the rest for his companions to shoot or simply catch and kill with hands and feet. Mihan did the latter with startling fury, grinding even mutilated carcasses under foot. He ran down the last of them and crushed its middle under his heel. When the dying creature snapped at his ankle, he raised his foot and brought it down on the creature's head not once but three times.

Only then did he become aware of the stares of the other finbacks. He turned a circle, meeting all of their gazes without sign of shame. "I'm in command now," he said. "Here's my first order: They just killed on of ours, one of our very best. We make them pay the usual, full penalty: We go in there, and we kill them; we kill every single one of them. No matter what happens- casualties, loss of materiel, even orders to the contrary- we don't stop until until even the last trace of them is destroyed."

0730

The finbacks' elimination of the remaining parasitoids had been fast and brutal even by their standards. Only four adult parasitoids had remained alive to oppose the finbacks. Now, just one fled, carrying the host of the royal embryos. As it retreated down the lab's main corridor, it found its path suddenly blocked by the Tick, who wielded Little Mac. It turned back, only to face Dreadlocks at the other end. It held its captive in front of itself. Without an instant's hesitation, Dreadlocks fired two inert 3 cm slugs through the hostage, and two more into the parasitoid as it reeled back.

"We could have helped him!" the Tick exclaimed.

"He was infected. Lupov, have these carcasses burned." Lupov took them both and carried them down to the storeroom, where Zotgjakt was already building a merry bonfire out of napalm and pig flesh. Dreadlocks pointed to the door behind the Tick. "Now tell me, who or what is in there?"

In the bay, the queen still clung to edge of the shaft, her claws tearing furrows in the metal. Nibeaux had made his way across and down to stand beside her. She screamed as her children died, and cried out louder and longer as the acrid fumes of burning parasitoids wafted up from below. "It is the exoskeletoned ones who did this," Nibeaux said. "I suppose your children finally managed to kill one of them. That was a mistake. Now they pay with their lives. You see, they have come to understand the true value of vengeance. It is not to punish past offenses, but to prevent future ones. When the consequences of a single act are terrible enough, not only for those who committed it but for anyone who may have helped them or even been present when the deed was done, few will be brave enough to try it again, and fewer still will be willing to do anything but hinder them. I wonder if you can understand that. They will kill you, too, of course, as soon as they find you. Do not expect your powers to delay your end. Only I can protect you."

Dreadlocks, not entirely satisfied with the Tick's speed in opening the doors, punched them open. He found Lewontin washing her hands, and the Flea was holding Maria's hand at the other end of the lab. Maria was on a surgical table, marginally conscious. Her skin was pale, but she appeared happy and relieved. Dreadlocks' gaze fixed on Maria. "She was infected," he said, not at all in the tone of a question.

"We removed the endoparasitoid surgically in the early incubation period," Lewontin said.

"Show it to me," Dreadlocks said.

"It would be better if I did not. They are sensitive to light-"

"So it still lives." There was a long silence. "Show it to me now, or I will destroy your lab to find it." Lewontin unlocked a cabinet and took out a plexiclass box with the 20 cm-long cyst. Within the translucent cocoon, something stirred. Dreadlocks took it roughly from her hands and stepped into the hall. There was the dull whumph of a wrist launcher, a few puffs of phosphorous and a steady sizzle.

Dreadlocks came back into the room and looked intently at Maria. She shuddered and screeched, "Boochie, what does he want?" The Flea too shook, but did nothing when Dreadlocks strode over and reached for her. He touched her cheek, then reached around to the back of her head- where a slight squeeze from his motorized grip could instantly end her life. Then, just as he gripped the back of her head, the Flea grabbed his wrist. A moment later, Dreadlocks was stepping away, speaking a short but charming remark to Maria, and giving no indication that he had just had his wrist sprained.

Nibeaux drove a forklift up to the monarch She grabbed hold of the cab, and he went into reverse just to keep from being dragged by her weight. With her other outer arm, she reached up and caught hold of the side of the enormous mouth of the bay. Then, with a ponderous motion, she swung her foot up and onto the deck. A moment later, she managed to bring her ovipositor up after it.

At that moment, several things happened virtually at once. Dreadlocks burst into the bay and aimed his AGL at the queen. Nibeaux jumped into his path, spouting half-intelligible commands, and even the vengeful renegade before him was hesitant to shoot through him. The queen reared up, letting go of the fork lift and reaching for the finback. Then the elevator came down. The lunging queen was slammed down when her head hit the descending platform. She screeched as she found herself pinned between the platform and the bay floor. One of two figures on the platform shouted for the other to stop the elevator. The second figure, who wore the armor of a finback, pushed a button. Instead of stopping, the elevator accelerated. The queen contorted for a moment, then disappeared in a tsunami of acid blood, innards and crushed chitin. Nibeaux had the presence of mind to leap onto the forklift, and so avoided having his ankles dissolved out from under him. He and Ling yelled together, "ZARATUSTRA!"

0800

Nibeaux, Ling and Maria flew away in the small helicopter stored below the main hangar. The finbacks were lifted out two at a time by the one remaining light helicopter, which was piloted by Martinez with a little assistance from Lewontin.

No one knew when or how Huntress had left. Hunter's location was known all too well. His body lay in one of the side bays of the hangar, eviscerated and stripped save for the device on his wrist. The panel of this device was down to two digits.


	32. Epilogue

Epilogue

28 July 2044

The war had taken a bad turn for Serbia, especially its southernmost district of Pcinja. This very day, the last Serb troops had withdrawn from the municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovac, which were ironically the only territory the Kosovars had ever wanted to take. Now, however, there was an imminent risk that this was only a prelude to the loss of the entire district. In the east, a division of Bulgarian "peace keepers" had seized Surdulica and Bosilegrad, and were plowing their way through Vladicin Han. In the south, the majority-Serb but chronically neglected municipality of Trgoviste had declared support for Kosovo. The district center of Vranje was the only municipality still solidly under the control of the Serbian federal government, yet even that had become a scene of general panic, retreat and outright disloyalty. In the southwest, the survivors of Presevo and their would-be reinforcements were fighting off a Kosovar envelopment. In the north, a counteroffensive led by the Shqipterian army had already claimed the land directly bordering Kosovo. Throughout the municipality, secessionist Serbs engaged in sedition, sabotage and open guerilla warfare. Even in the city of Vranje, pro-secessionist grafitti could be seen on every block.

The city of Vranje was on what had been the main road to Bujanovac. The road was now the main escape route for retreating troops and refugees. Unfortunately, chronic underfunding of the district had left the road in poor repair at the start of the war, and bombing, shelling, blockades, martial law and simple gridlock that came with the war had compounded the transportation problem. The end result was that the city had become an impassable obstacle to everything but tanks and APCs (whose ongoing presence had done nothing to help the condition of the asphalt). Many refugees had thus ended up stranded, with their transportation out of gas, broken down, stolen, confiscated or even run over by impatient tanks. They had little choice but to settle in sprawling shantytowns, which covered an area greater than the city itself and virtually unavoidably ended up abutting military compounds and camps. Today, the problems of traffic and civilian-military tensions were worse than usual, thanks to a remarkable synchronicity: A convoy of tanks and troop carriers retreating from Bujanovac reached the outskirts of Vranje at the exact same time as a similar convoy headed the opposite direction, with a logjam of refugees' cars in between. By then, the only way forward was over the refugees' cars, and the only way to turn off was through their camps. The military's solution to the admittedly intractable problem led directly to a major demonstration/riot outside a major military compound on the northwest side of the city. About 30,000 people were involved. Many of them were waving flattened possessions, and many of the rest were holding up signs and banners that would be considered obscene at best and treasonous at worst.

Within this compound, Ling and the Ophites were trying to resolve what were to them more pressing problems. Ling was, once again, bound. He sat between Nibeaux and Rausch, before a webcam whose feed was most definitely untraceable. Zaratustra stood behind them.

Nibeaux spoke to the camera in an excessively polite tone. "Please understand that we do not wish to in any way to threaten your organization. We merely wish to end our partnership."

A distorted voice answered over an audio-only feed: "You are under contract to us. All your resources are owed to us. Anything you produce is ours, and ours alone."

Ling himself corrected: "Now, those were not the terms of the original agreement. The only condition dictated as to the use of their research is to share all data with us. Exclusivity is not a condition; indeed, they were specifically authorized also to share their results with a third party, specifically Serbia."

"If they choose to withdraw, they must return everything we gave them."

"That, also, is not strictly true," Ling said. "They agreed to conduct research relevant to our own goals. We agreed to provide them with fixed quantities of resources to perform the tasks we gave them. It is a specific condition that they may keep any surplus of resources. This is only fitting, since one of our main objectives is to determine the minimum amount of resources necessary for a given end. In any event, a high proportion of the resources they received were in Omega Aleph, which of course is lost to all concerned."

There was an audible hiss of exasperation. "Give them one more chance to reconsider. If they withdraw from the partnership now, there will be no renewing it. They will never receive any aid from us again. If they ever threaten our interests in any way, we will annihilate them."

"We already have alternate sources of support. That is for us to deal with, regardless," Nibeaux said. "If you do not wish to challenge our offer, that will be all."

"It will."

Zaratustra escorted Ling to a waiting car. As they walked, Ling spoke: "You were very helpful to us, Zaratustra. Others wish to know if you will continue to be helpful in the future." The finback shook his head. "Of course, consideration has been given to blackmailing you… but only my full report can give them anything to blackmail you with."

"I will make a deal, but with you alone," Zaratustra said. "I am fairly certain I would recognize you if I met you again, with or without the mask. Such an encounter could create considerable problems for both of us. I offer, on my word, not to disclose your identity to anyone else if we should meet again. I ask the same treatment from you."

"I accept."

"Go with good fortune, _Herr Inspektor_."

Ling departed through a gate at the rear of the compound. At the front, the riot was becoming truly ugly. The military guards were lenient with the civilians, responding only with the occasional tear gas grenade, until they began throwing well-directed volleys of bottles, rocks and other heavyweight hand missiles at the sentries, and vandals began climbing the fence to smash and spray paint the cameras. The last straw came when a pair of vandals knocked down a drone emplacement with a crowbar and a sledge hammer. Snipers opened fire with rubber bullets, and two squads of military police marched out, clubbing, gassing, tasering and even firing shotgun shells full of rock salt. The MPs did their duty professionally, advancing in a disciplined phalanx at just the right pace to push the civilians back without sending them into a self-destructive stampede, and using serious displays of force only against the more persistent rioters. But casualties were suffered. First one of them stepped on a broken beer bottle, left upright by accident or design, and had to hobble back to the gate with help from a second officer. A second MP withdrew after a vandal spray-painted his gas mask. A third took a crowbar to the kneecap while subduing a trio of hooligans who charged their flank. Then an MP was wounded by a masked man with a concealed pistol. Two snipers promptly fired two bullets each. All four rounds hit the shooter, with instantly lethal results, but one exited and hit a young woman in the belly. The MPs faltered, and the crowd froze with the kind of stunned horror that often precedes murderous rage. An exceptionally vicious or stupid member of the crowd used the opportunity to hurl a Molotov cocktail.

At this point, by long historical precedent, crowds either made a virtually suicidal charge against the outnumbered but well-armed figures of authority, or made a panicked, equally self-destructive retreat. But this time, six exotroopers intervened. Princip marched to the gate in full armor. Lupov was at his side and behind them were Dreadlocks, newly promoted to sergeant, and his squad, comprised of Sunflower, the Flea and the Tick. The crowd shouted Princip's name and the nicknames of the veterans, with varying degrees of fear, loathing and grudging respect. Princip surveyed the crowd, noting the messages on their signs. Variations on PEACE NOW! were most common. One interesting sign on this vein read PRESENOVAC (a contraction of Presevo and Bujanovac)- WHO EVEN WANTS IT? Following close behind were anti-Belgrade signs, like one that read BELGRADE GIVES VRANJE THE LIGHT BULB! ("Give the lightbulb" was a euphemism for same-sex rape, originating from the case of a Bujanovac Serb who claimed that Shqiptars had violated him with a lamp.) Then there were the openly anti-military signs. He noted several, like the one that read STAY IN VRANJE OR GO BACK TO BELGRADE!, referring to rumors that the Serbian army planned to retreat into the Jablanica district. He also observed an impressive number of variations on RAUSCH IS A FAT MALE WHORE!

As Princip looked silently into the crowd, their volume subsided at least to the level of ordinary conversations. Then he finally spoke: "What's all this fuss for?" The angry shouting resumed, but was now focused on specific grievances, and accompanied by waving pictures or actual specimens of destroyed possessions. He took particular notice of a five-year-old boy on his father's shoulders who cried at a very impressive volume that his cat had been run over by a tank. He spoke into his comm, then beckoned to father and child, and the crowd parted so that they met part way. The father set the child down, and the exotrooper dropped to one knee to address the child.

A short dialogue established that the child's name was Djorge Boselivic, and that he was the youngest of five brothers. He learned that the eldest brother had been drafted, and promised to look into his status. He learned that the cat's name had been Krna, and that it had been an animal of the stuffed variety. "We cannot replace everything you and your family lost, or what these others have lost," he said. "But this much we can give…" At that moment, the crowd cried out at a new arrival: "ZED!" And Zed it was, carrying a piebald kitten.

They gave the boy the kitten, of course, which came from a recent litter of an infantry company's mascot. The boy asked to name it "little Anton" after Princip, who cheerfully agreed, though he could tell from casual examination that the kitten was a female. Meanwhile, the MPs and arriving paramedics tended to the wounded officers and the civilian, and even made a token attempt to resuscitate the shooter. Princip stood to address the crowd: "You know me. You know I am a man of the Church, and that I always do my best to wrong no one, be he friend, foe or civilian. Please, list the possessions you have lost and file for compensation from the federal war reparations bureau. I cannot promise that you will receive compensation, but at least there will be an official record of your losses. I have some less formal contacts in the bureau, and I will make sure no one loses your paperwork."

Someone shouted: "Is the army abandoning Pcinja?"

"I know of no such plan," Princip said.

Another shouted an even more rash question: "Are you for Belgrade?"

"What is Belgrade?" Princip said with a rhetorical flourish. "Belgrade is a place, full of countless people good and bad. None but our Lord could judge them all, and even He judges them individually. The history of our land would be much happier if we had better followed His example. The leaders in Belgrade are likewise many men. It is not my responsibility to know everything about them and what they do. My duty is to do my best to fulfill their orders _and_ to protect all the civilians of Serbia. Rest assured, I will never blindly sacrifice the latter for the former."

This was enough to defuse the situation. Slowly but surely, the crowd dispersed, far from happy but no longer murderously angry. Princip left in the meantime. He had received a summons to see Rausch as soon as possible, and it specified that he was to come _out _of armor. Before he left, he used his epad to search for a name in the military database. A few minutes later, Dreadlocks handed nominal command to Zaratustra, and left with Lupov in tow.

"Effective today," Rausch told Princip, "the exotrooper corps and Strategic Deterrence command are being transferred to the Prokletije front. You and your men are to take the first available flight to Novi Pazar."

"I would have thought you would need our help to hold off the Bulgarians, or at least aide the withdrawal from the south."

"That would be too much of a risk," Rausch said. "Besides, the local reserves are holding back the enemy well enough."

"Those reserves are enough only if the federal army intends to withdraw within two weeks," Princip said. Then he spoke still more bluntly, "The army is withdrawing to Jablanica, is it not?"

"You know very well that you do not have clearance for theater level strategic planning. But, informally, I will tell you that we have ensured that all essential assets remain secure, whether or not they remain here. Since this is an informal conversation, I can overlook the fact that, by regulations, you could be court-martialled just for asking that question. And, incidentally, I have been meaning to ask you about the demise of Lt. Potok, and the loss of one captured Cyrano."

"What is there to explain?" Princip said. "The insurgents left explosives behind, which were triggered while we were securing the hangar. The cave walls collapsed, and Potok was presumably crushed."

"Yes, and apparently, the munitions and fuel stores detonated at the same time, destroying any evidence that could confirm or contradict your story," Rausch said. "Let us get to the point, Princip. I don't wish to have to punish you for going to Omega Aleph. I don't even want you to admit that you did. All I want is to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. Would my closing the investigation, along with overlooking your little gaff just now, be enough?"

Princip stood. "If I were the kind of man to respond to blackmail, it might be. Except, if by any chance I had been at Omega Aleph, I might have found the communications log. I might have a recording of you speaking to Omega Aleph staff, hours before you told me that there had been no contact. I might have evidence that you called off all airborne search units except those under your direct control. I might be able to convince quite a few people that you intended to report Omega Aleph destroyed after secretly `appropriating' the extraterrestrial specimens for yourself."

Rausch stood up too. "What do you want?"

"First off, I want you to take your best shot." Princip assumed a judo pose.

Rausch gave a snide laugh, pushed aside his desk and charged. A second or so later, he crashed through the door of his own office. Princip stepped out after him. "Zed says that mass is 90% of the law. But the principles of judo show that it's momentum that really matters, and that it doesn't do a bit of good when it's pointed in the wrong direction. As long as we are conversing, there's two more things you can do for me. You can tell the family of Nikolas Bosilevic that their eldest son was killed in Bujanovac three days ago. You can explain how you ordered his unit to attack the enemy, and ordered their federal `support' to retreat as soon as the battle was under way." As he spoke, thudding footsteps drew nearer. Then Dreadlocks and Lupov leaned over. As the fully armored finbacks lifted the general, Princip finished: "And finally- you can eat _kaka_."

After the crowd was dispersed, Zaratustra, the Flea and the Tick did a circuit of the street. "So, I hear you and Maria got hitched," the Tick said to the Flea. The Flea nodded. "Really! I wouldn't have thought it possible, unless she's already-"

" It's complicated," the Flea said.

They stopped at a municipal building that had become a bulletin board for graffiti and surveyed the latest inscriptions. The Flea and the Tick commented on an unusually graphic version of the protesters' comments on Rausch, with illustrations. "Maybe we should tell Rausch about this one," the Tick said.

"No," said the Flea. "He might order a hand-writing analysis, and that _might_ implicate me."

While they examined that work, Zaratustra circled around a corner, to a wall reserved by general understanding for the bolder and generally more artistically inclined vandals. "You may find these of more interest," he said. The other two went to see what he meant.

"Wow! A lot of these are of us," said the Tick. "There's me…"

"I would assume so, from the toilet seat. And there's Dreadlocks… or his head, at any rate."

"Ouch! And say, look at that!" Near the edge of the wall, two figures had been painted in a scene of deadly combat. One was a finback, with a crown of rods like Zaratustra's. The other was unmistakably a parasitoid. The finback was definitely winning.

"And so it comes to this, the full circle," Zaratustra said. "Before civilization existed, the only concrete record men had of history was what they painted on the walls of their caves. And as civilization dies, its only enduring record may be what the vandals leave spray painted on the walls of our ruins."

As they walked back, the Tick said, "You know, I still wonder about what happened at Omega Aleph. Two things especially: First, there are the scaly aliens' bombs. Princip said the one that German chick tried to blast him with went off after ten, at most fifteen minutes. So, the one that took out Omega Aleph couldn't have been activated before 0745, and that was when Zed reported finding the body of the male. So how could the bomb have been activated by the female, unless she was still right there in the hangar. And if she didn't, who did? Then there's the stolen egg, the one the Pollack was after. He was sure the thing was there, sure enough to kill to get to it. And I'm convinced that something was hidden there. Someone else just got to it first. So who was it? And what happened to the egg?" He looked meaningfully at Zaratustra.

Zaratustra stopped and turned abruptly. So ask."

"Did you take the egg?" said the Tick. He then added, "Do you still have the egg?"

"I will tell you this," Zaratustra said. "I am sure Martinez told you that I do not lie. She probably told you some speculation about reasons I might be incapable of lying. I will tell you the real reason. I spent my early life in the Krugerland colony. It was founded by Elder Schweitzer, a German special forces soldier who joined what became the Ophite movement. He decided, for the breeding of more perfectly Aryan offspring, to go with five of his brothers, three grown sons and fifty women to a commune he built for himself in Africa. All the women and the daughters born to them were available to all the men, save their own sons and brothers. I was the last he sired himself, at least in a woman he reserved for himself long enough for descent to be certain. He took a special pride in me. When I was eight- it was a week after I beat my 14-year-old nephew to death, that would make a tale by itself- he sat me down and said to me: `Zaratustra, of all my sons, and nephews, and grandchildren, you are the most perfect. I will tell you how to prove your perfection. Tell the truth, or say nothing at all. Fulfill every vow, or do not take the vow to begin with. And remember: Every lie, whatever its purpose, advances the reign of Chaos.'"

"But- that doesn't answer my question- either of my questions!"

"This will." Zaratustra said nothing. Then he turned and strode out of sight.

The Flea and the Tick stopped beside a row of portable toilets just inside the perimeter. These had been brought in as increasing numbers of troops and increasingly long and frequent interruptions in running water strained the compound's indoor facility. The "portables" were by now the first and last option for most of the thousand troops in the compound. From one of these stalls, muffled cries could be heard, and the door and even the walls shook at a steady pounding within. The finbacks looked at each other in mutual puzzlement and bemusement. The Flea shrugged and pulled the door open. Within was General Rausch, tied up and shoved head first down the pot. His great girth had got him stuck before he went down far enough to drown. The Flea and the Tick looked back at each other. The Tick spoke first: "I think we need a bigger plunger!"

END


	33. Appendix: Tech specs and more

**This is something I started a while back in response to a reader question. It's in keeping with my previous books, which have always had a "tech specs" section to end with. This has been a very interesting project, and I am glad that many people seem to have enjoyed it. I don't know whether I will pursue more fan fiction any time soon, but I would definitely like to do more some time. For readers who have come with me this far, I have given my publisher a pitch to put this in some kind of book form (provided we can avoid being sued). It has been fun to work with the Fox "critters", and also to write some of my original characters into a different setting. I have especially enjoyed being able to let characters whom I created as villains with few or no lines, like Sunflower, the Flea, the Tick and Nibeaux himself, play themselves out as fully-formed characters. Finally, as someone who has come to fan fiction after turning out a significant amount of "original" work, I would like to encourage everyone coming from the other way 'round. From the first "vignette" to this final post has taken about a year, with the writing of the text being done in four months, and I am very pleased with this time. In a departure from my usual approach, I outlined this whole story before writing it out, and written most ot the scenes in order. So, for those thinking of trying their hands at longer and original works, my message is that, once you have a set of vivid characters and a clearly plotted story to put them in, it's not that hard or even that time-consuming to get a good story put together.**

**Update: Chapters 1-13, revised and illustrated by me, are available as Aliens Vs. Exotroopers I: Wild Type for Kindle!**

**Secondary weapons of the finbacks**

The technology and tactics of combat exoskeletons during the Serbo-Albanian war was comparable to that of aviation during World War 1. The technology was barely a decade old, and manufacturers had not only failed to perfect it, but were still divided and confused over what it was to be used for. The combat use of exoskeletons was, if possible, even more confused. The "finbacks", the first operational exotrooper force to see combat, ended up writing the rulebook for themselves. The choice of weapons, and even the configuration of their armor, was heavily influenced by individual choice. Nevertheless, by the time of the escalation of the Serbo-Albanian conflict in 2043, several weapons had risen to prominence among the finbacks:

PTRD-41: The standard armament of finback commanders (also called spotters) was a modern, semi-automatic 14.5 mm anti-material rifle. An alternate selection was a working replica of the WW2 single-shot rifle of the same caliber. Two advantages were argued for the PTRD. First, it was much easier to switch to a different kind of ammunition. Second, the PTRD and other vintage weapons came fitted with optical sights, which had long since been virtually abandoned in favor of electronic scopes, but were found to be still desirable in some situations, particularly against enemies with laser and radar detectors.

Franchi 12-gauge slug gun: Finback doctrine quickly established that close combat was to be avoided wherever possible. For this reason, little effort was made by the finbacks to obtain close-range weapons. One of the few such weapons to become commonplace was a heavily modified version of a semi-bullpup Franchi SPAS shotgun. The major modifications were the fitting of a 30 cm-long rifled barrel, a shortened frame and the removal of a folding stock and pump-action slide. The shape of the weapon is strikingly blocky, and has been compared to the Uzi submachine gun. Magazines of 5 or 10 rounds were loaded at the top of the gun, directly above the grip. The rifled barrel prevented the use of many standard 12-gauge rounds, but a wide variety of ammo was still available, including saboted slugs, phosphorous pellets, flechette canisters and many different kinds of grenades. Users were consistently identified as commanders, leading many to suspect that it was equivalent to the traditional officer's pistol- a symbol of authority, at least as much as a combat weapon.

43 mm wrist launcher: The only close-combat weapon to be given to most finbacks was this, a double-barreled grenade launcher mounted on the left forearm shield. They were typically loaded with a flechette canister in one barrel and a white phosphorous smoke grenade in the other. In the event of being closely pressed, the user could inflict multiple casualties with a single flechette blast and then use the smoke grenade to cover a hopefully speedy escape. Other loadings included standard anti-personnel grenades, shaped-charge grenades for use against armor, and a bola shell, designed for clearing barbed wire and other obstacles.

Spear gun: Commanders of finback units were often seen to have a specialized weapon or tool in place of the wrist launcher. This revealed a significant nuance in finback doctrine: When it was necessary to assail a fortification or otherwise inaccessible position (another situation they preferred to avoid), a commander was often the first to go in. Probably the most common was a spear gun, used for scaling walls, crossing gaps and sometimes for close combat. By standard configuration, the spear gun was pre-loaded with a harpoon, propellant charge and 30 m of cable, and had a small but powerful winch. The harpoon tips were tungsten carbide, capable of punching through 10 mm of armor at close range. Usually, two additional harpoons and cables were carried. An alternate configuration was to load a standard harpoon and cable, and carry an additional harpoon and a 100 m cable.

Gas spike: The oddest known weapon used by a finback was a breeching device of a type developed originally by American law enforcement. Originally called a "gas axe", the device was intended to flood a room with tear gas. (The name was also used in Australia for common welding tools, and so did not come into international use.) The version used in the Serbo-Albanian wars could blow open a door or hatch. A variety of gas grenades were used, including white phosphorous. It appears that all Serb versions were made only by individuals, rather than being mass-produced. Zaratustra is the only finback known to use the device, and use of the gas spike and white phosphorous became a signature for him. As the device gained notoriety through him, the Albanians and their allies became interested enough to design a production version of the gas spike, specifically for use in a projected offensive against the Beograd (Belgrade) district. The war ended before the device reached frontline users.

12.76 revolver: One of the finbacks' major weapons was the 12.76 mm heavy machine gun, commonly called "Dushka", which was usually carried by a squire. They were also known to carry a revolver designed for the same round. The gun was relatively popular with terrorist and resistance organizations, mainly as an easily concealed alternative to full-sized anti-materiel rifles. For any user but an exotrooper, it was necessary to rest a bipod or unipod on an available stable surface. An unusual round developed for the gun was a modified duplex round, having two bullets loaded one in front of the other in the same case, with the second bullet replaced by a rocket motor. The rocket provides additional acceleration for the front projectile, usually a saboted tungsten arrow penetrator, after it leaves the barrel. The penetrators were said to have a peak velocity of 1600 meters at a range of 30 m from the barrel, and were credibly claimed to be capable of penetrating elements of a finback's helmet and breast plate with a favorable angle of impact. It first came to the notice of the exotrooper corps as a weapon used against them. While its effect against them was consistently negligible, they were impressed enough to use captured specimens themselves.

Flame carbines: By the late 20th century, flame throwers had been phased out of the world's armies. They had long been found to be impractically heavy and limited in range, and to be controversial besides, and incendiary grenades and rockets had been developed to accomplish the same tasks from longer ranges. In the Novi Pazar insurrection of 2040, Serbia revived the weapon as a short range incendiary weapon. The very proposal was condemned as a war crime by the international community. The flame carbine was designed for ranges of 10 to 50 meters, and to function without need of a back pack or connecting hose. Like earlier flame throwers, it fired a napalm spray that was propelled by gas pressure and ignited electrically in the nozzle. The final design called for two infantry men, one to carry and fire the carbine itself and one to refill the napalm and compressed air tanks from a man-portable reservoir, plus a light vehicle to carry an air compressor and extra napalm. A pump was provided to allow the user to recharge the compressed air supply by hand, but soldiers reported it was exhausting to operate. The flame carbine was not fielded in combat until 2042, and was quickly relegated to storage. In late 2043, it was requested by Lt. Potok for use by the exotroopers, and remained in their hands for the rest of the war. Its latest known use was in the Pristina airbase raid of July 2046.

**Finback deployment and ranks**

Serbia's exotrooper corps (formally designated the Serbian Federal Special Armor Command) was a very small but notorious branch of the nation's army. Its maximum size was 817 members, of which fewer than 400 were full "hercegs", in July 2043. It had shrunk to no more than 600 a year later, and to less than 300 by the beginning of 2045. After massive losses in the Pristina raid, the exotrooper corps was declared "operationally annihilated" by Albanian and allied sources. However, up to 9 squads remained active in the final months of the war.

A Serb exotrooper squad consisted of four finbacks (hercegs in the Serbs' own terminology), four squires and one or two combat drones. The finbacks consisted of a commander or "spotter", armed with a 14.5 mm rifle, two skirmishers, typically armed with an MG42/45 and a 3 cm automatic grenade launcher, and a tank destroyer, armed with a 57 mm recoilless gun and wearing a heavier model of exoskeleton. The squires were entrusted with carrying supplies and operating heavier weapons, like the 12.76 mm "Dushka" heavy MG and various calibers of mortars and autocannons.

A group of two to four finback squads was called a platoon, and any grouping of five or more squads was called a company. In practice, a company designated all the platoons operating in the same theater, rather than a necessarily unified group. The official ranks were "private" for a squire, "corporal" for skirmishers and tank destroyers, "sergeant" for a squad commander and "lieutenant" for a platoon commander. These designations did not convey their full authority: Under the rather convoluted charter supplied by the Beograd Emergency Council, they could exert significant authority over even their nominal superiors in other army branches. A company commander was still officially a "lieutenant", and exerted influence only on a "first among equals" basis. His one formal distinction was that he was also designated "instructor". The first to receive this designation were Russian "consultants" like Potok. Like the "advisers" of the Vietnam War, in practice their role always included combat. This evolved into a system where company-level units were organized around one or two "training" squads. Late in the war, it was applied to units that in terms of size were no more than platoons.

The last company-level exotrooper engagement of the war was the defense of Omega Facility in December 2046 and January 2047 by three squads of exotroopers. Serb sources reported Lt. "Dreadlocks" Mihan, Corporals "Sunflower" Karajorga, "the Flea" Josevic, "the Tick" Komsmolets and acting sergeant "Albanak" Zotgjakt killed in action. They received Serbia's highest decorations posthumously; an official statement by the Beograd defense council maintained that they died defending an unspecified "super weapon" that forced Shqipteria to agree to a peace settlement. A report in 2052 suggested that Josevic might have survived and be in hiding in Italy; subsequent investigation could neither confirm nor disprove this possibility. General Rausch, Dr. Arnault Chablan (aka Dr. Nibeaux) and Drs. Martinez and Lewontin were also reported dead by the Serbs. An UNCOST investigative committee declared them all "dead beyond any serious doubt" in 2055. Albert Zaratustra "Zed" Schwartz was taken into custody by UN forces on January 17 2047, but escaped the same day. He died in June 2065 during the Ophite hijacking of a time machine. Lt. Princip was reported missing in action on 20 January 2047. An anonymous source supposedly in the Beograd council accused him of abandoning his platoon, collaborating with enemy troops and even killing at least one of his own men. No evidence was offered for this claim, which was unanimously denied by the council. Princip eventually received the same decoration as his men in 2048. His wife and three of his five children disappeared from Montenegro just before this was announced. As of January 2068, no evidence of the fate or whereabouts of Princip or his missing family has ever been found.


End file.
